


Deductions of a Lesser Mind

by SilentAuror



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, HLV fix-it, His Last Vow fix-it, Hurt/Comfort, Infidelity, M/M, POV John Watson, Set after His Last Vow, series 3 fix-it, tad depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 09:08:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentAuror/pseuds/SilentAuror
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John isn't an idiot, but some things just take him longer to work out. He's not Sherlock or Mycroft or Mary. Set beginning the day His Last Vow ends. John/Sherlock, John/Mary. See tags for warnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deductions of a Lesser Mind

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Дедукция для начинающих](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1816621) by [Scotland_Yard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scotland_Yard/pseuds/Scotland_Yard)



**Deductions of a Lesser Mind**

 

After everything that has happened in the past two and a half months, John feels as though his brain cannot possibly accept one more piece of information. Especially not if it’s contrary to all of the other pieces he already knows or thought that he knew. It’s all a bit too much. 

What he does know at that very instant is that the sight of the plane turning in the air and returning to the tarmac is the sweetest thing he’s ever seen. He can barely hear Mary panicking beside him, barely hear or see anything clearly except for that plane. The goodbye still feels surreal, a hazy aura of near-hallucinatory fantasy surrounding it. As he’d watched the plane take off, he’d felt suddenly certain that Sherlock had been about to say something entirely different – he knew it in the moment, he realised belatedly; he’d steeled himself to hear whatever it was. The laugh that had burst out of him at what Sherlock actually _had_ said was really nothing more than a release of all of the pent-up tension and the disbelief that Sherlock was making a joke at this precise moment, albeit a touching one. And then he’d stood there as the plane took off and tried not to acknowledge to himself that Sherlock did not expect to survive the mission. It was Sherlock. He survived jumping off the roof of a hospital. Surely he would survive whatever Mycroft and the Serbians had in store. 

And maybe the time to just be on his own with Mary and try to figure out how the hell they were supposed to get on with their lives now would be good. He still had so many questions, most of which he was determined to never ask, but it didn’t mean that they didn’t still occur to him. Every now and then the anger would rise again and nearly bubble out his lips, but then he would turn and look at her, reading on the sofa, the bulge of their child showing under the billowing shirts she wears these days, and whatever he was about to say would die down. There’s a child now. That’s a game-changer. And he loves her. So help him, he does. And of all people, it was Sherlock Bloody Holmes who showed him why. 

Never mind the fact, of course, that Sherlock had essentially said that the reason was more or less that Mary was a female version of himself. Another thing he was resolutely determined not to think of again. 

But he’d watched the plane take off and thought with a pang that he’d survived losing Sherlock once before, and this time he wasn’t on his own. There was Mary and the baby and whatever their marriage was now to take his mind off it. He’d made it last time, though it had taken a long time to start feeling human again, with the grief boring holes in him so deep he thought he’d never heal. Distraction was good. And Mary was wrong; he’d never seen what she was. That was invention on her part and Sherlock’s. He wasn’t as clever as they were, not clever enough to see that, at any rate. What was he going to do without Sherlock to explain everything to him? Somehow he thought he’d have a harder time taking that sort of thing from Mary. 

The relief that is still washing through him from what Mycroft said is frankly drowning out any concern he has about Moriarty, at least at the moment. Sherlock is coming back. Thank God. Whatever this is, Sherlock will deal with it. He beat Moriarty before and he will again, and John will do whatever it takes to help him. 

The plane comes to a halt. When the door opens, John lets go of Mary’s hand and nearly – he doesn’t, but it’s a close call – runs to the stairs unfolding in front of him. When Sherlock emerges, it’s John’s face he finds first, not Mycroft’s, though Mycroft is there at John’s shoulder. John grabs him and bear-hugs him, the way he should have done before Sherlock left. He’s laughing and trying not to cry at the same time. “You wily bastard! How did you engineer _that_?”

“ _Not_ my doing, I assure you,” Sherlock says, but he’s laughing and hugging back. He gives John a brief, but deeply relieved and possibly even happy look before releasing him and turning to his brother. “Tell me everything,” he orders, and Mycroft walks him to a car, speaking rapidly. 

John follows them. Mycroft is already ushering Sherlock inside but John grabs the door, prevents it from closing. “Wait! Sherlock, you will tell me what I need to do, won’t you? I mean, you know I’ll be there whenever you need me.”

Mycroft frowns at him, but Sherlock is nodding. “Yes, of course,” he said, and Mycroft closes the door firmly on his brother before turning to John. 

“John,” he says, and John can already hear the warning, the dissuasion about to follow, and Mycroft Holmes can go sod himself if he thinks for a second that John is going to stand for _that_. “Go home,” Mycroft says. His eyes cut to Mary, still standing where John left her. “Take your wife and go home. Sherlock will be in touch if necessary.”

“If _necessary_ ,” John begins, staring hard at Mycroft. “Mycroft – ”

“Please,” Mycroft interrupts him, smooth as cream. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough damage here?”

John feels his jaw drop open. “ _Me?_ What are you talking about?”

Mycroft has already turned away, hand on the door handle, but he looks back over his shoulder. “Ask yourself why he did it,” he says cryptically. 

Confusion. “Why who did what?” John asks stupidly. “Moriarty?”

Mycroft gusts a sigh that could add to the global warming effect. “Sherlock,” he corrects, exasperated with John’s tiresome thickness and opens the car door without another word. They drive off, the silhouette of Sherlock’s head turned questioningly toward his brother before they’re out of sight, leaving John behind. 

“John.” Behind, but not alone. Belatedly he turns, Mary’s voice carried to him on the wind in the open airfield. Oh, right. He walks back to her and nods at their own car, trying to pretend he’s not upset. He’s just been dismissed and chastised at the same time and he doesn’t understand why or what’s going on. Mary is giving him a quizzical look, questioning. 

He doesn’t have anything to say; he has no idea what’s going on, so he just shakes his head. “I guess they’ll be in touch,” he says, his voice a bit too tight, and he brushes past her. She grabs his arm as he goes, though, slipping hers through his, a bit too understanding for his liking. 

“I’m sure he will,” she says, and neither of them comments on her change of _they_ to _he_. 

He doesn’t notice until later that she’s remarkably quiet in the car all the way home, too. 

***

Sherlock still hasn’t called by the evening. John considers texting him, but if Mycroft is calling all of the shots, perhaps he’s seized Sherlock’s phone. Still, though. John wishes he could tell himself that it wasn’t like Sherlock not to count him in on a case, especially this case, the case that had changed both of their lives so drastically. It only seems fair that they go after Moriarty together this time, too. Except that John doesn’t feel entirely certain that Sherlock _would_ let him in on this. What about that month, then, after the wedding? Sherlock had all but dropped off the face of the earth. John had texted once, maybe, to say they’d got back from the honeymoon. Had Sherlock responded? Yes, he remembered. A one-word text: _Good_. John had been dying with jet lag and told himself they’d go by the next day or something, after work maybe, but what had happened? Oh right – they’d accepted a dinner invitation and John had forgotten. But after that, what? Sherlock hadn’t been in touch and after a bit John had grown annoyed. It wasn’t as though Sherlock couldn’t have contacted _him_ if he wanted to see him. He’d never been one for just doing anything the normal way, but he’d never hesitated to let John know if he wanted him. _Baker Street. Come at once._ Or: _PS: Bring a flame-thrower._ Or he’d set up some elaborate “coincidence” where John would run into him somewhere completely unexpected, only it wouldn’t be a coincidental at all – 

John stops in his tracks, the newspaper he was trying to finish reading drooping an inch or two. Oh, bloody hell. He should have _known_. Of course it was no coincidence that he’d “stumbled” upon Sherlock in that drug den. Of course Sherlock would have known about Isaac and just put himself in the same place, where he knew John would find him. He had said he was working, not that John had believed it until later, when Sherlock’s plans regarding Magnussen came to light – though, of course, Sherlock could have avoided that by actually telling him about something in advance, for once. But he never had done things that way. What a dick. John catches himself smiling. 

“You all right?” Mary sounds curious, legs tucked up under her on the chair by the window. 

“What?” John looks over. “Fine, yeah. Sorry.”

“You were smiling,” Mary observes. 

John has to stop himself from wincing, remembering for the thousandth unwelcome time that this isn’t the observation of a loving, considerate wife, but that of a dangerously-skilled professional assassin. No, he reminds himself, firmly steering his mind away from this yet again. It’s _also_ the first part. Just because the second part is true doesn’t make the first part untrue. Still – it would do to watch his reactions. You’d think he’d have got used to that after all that time living with Sherlock, but no. And here he thought he’d got away from that level of constant scrutiny. He consciously makes himself relax, shrugging. “Just glad he’s back, that’s all.”

Mary smiles, but John thinks it seems a tad forced. Was she hoping he was smiling about her in some way? He probably should have said something like that. Oops. Her smile is fading a little. “Yeah,” she says. “Me too.”

He raises his eyebrows at this; it wasn’t as convincing as it should have been, somehow. He clears his throat and shakes out the pages of the paper again. He’s only read another line or two when Mary pushes herself out of the chair and comes over to sit beside him, curling up against him. He lowers his right elbow, which she’s leaning into, but it makes holding the paper up difficult. He tries reading with the paper collapsing in for a futile thirty seconds longer, then gives it up. He folds it and lays it on the sofa to his left and puts his arm around Mary’s shoulders. She wants his silent reassurance. Obvious, Sherlock would have said. He can’t give it to her in words – the words he did say were hard enough, and he doesn’t have it in him to tell her over and over again. He’s made his choice. But she looks at him every so often, a look that so plainly says that she’s craving some sort of reconfirmation that he’s not going to leave, and all he can do is hold her with his arms, since the words won’t come. 

“Do you think we’ll ever feel… normal again?” she asks quietly into the silence that’s filled the sitting room like a quiet pool, creeping in from beyond the walls. This suburb is too quiet. Makes the silence too noticeable, somehow. Mary presses into his arm. “Like we did before all this?”

It’s the twenty-eighth of December, only three days since their conversation at the Holmes’ parents’, but the time that Sherlock was being held seemed interminable. John feels he’s lived several weeks during these three past days. A decision had to be made and quickly; Mycroft was keeping the shooting completely hushed up. They had to decide, either to send Sherlock to prison for a very, very long time, or to force the MI6 assignment on him. Sherlock had called to tell him that, at least. “Will you be all right?” John had asked. “How dangerous will it be?”

Sherlock had answered with a facetiousness that seemed forced even for him, and that was saying something. “Oh, you know,” he’d said vaguely, too jovially. “It’ll be fine, John. I was in plenty of similar situations while I was away.”

John heard the doubt rising from his mobile to the satellite somewhere above them and back down into Sherlock’s phone on the other side of the city, but what could he possibly say? He couldn’t exactly go along, could he. “When are you off, then?” he’d asked finally, and when Sherlock told him, he sounded relieved. That John hadn’t expressed his doubts? Hadn’t offered to try to come along? Obviously that would be impossible anyway, and with the baby… no. He had to stay behind and they both knew it. He belonged here. No. Part of him, at the very least, still belonged by Sherlock’s side, but he wasn’t allowed to go and he couldn’t, anyway. What would be the point in arguing now? “We’ll be there to see you off,” he’d promised. “Don’t you dare leave without saying goodbye.”

“Of course not,” Sherlock had said, and this once, John actually believed him. 

Then the receptionist had said Mary’s name and John had had to go. The ultrasound had been scheduled for weeks; Mary had made the appointment sometime during the autumn when they hadn’t been talking and mentioned it the previous day. The first sight of their child took his mind off Sherlock somewhat, but it didn’t stop the worrying. He’d kept it to himself, though. Mary wasn’t talking about it, so he didn’t bring it up. Now, he can’t quite look at her. “I don’t know,” he says, trying to keep himself from sounding strained. “We’re not the same as we were before. I don’t think it can be exactly the same. But it will get better.”

Mary is quiet for a moment or two. Then, “Are you sure?” Her voice is small. “Can you really forget… what you know?”

He really doesn’t want to talk about it again. “I’ve told you that I’ll try,” he says, voice rasping slightly. “I’ve said that, haven’t I?” It’s just above a whisper, dry, irresolute. He means it, but it’s still so difficult to have to say the words aloud. Change the subject. “I’ve let the clinic know I might be taking some time off work.”

Mary doesn’t move but he can feel a different sort of stillness come over her. “Why?”

John’s gaze is still fixed to the dark stretch of the television in front of him. “Moriarty, of course,” he says. “I need to be available.”

“But Sherlock and Mycroft are looking after it,” Mary objects. “And you’re already going to be taking a lot of time when the baby is born. And you’re about to be a father. You have to think of that – ”

“Please don’t start,” John says shortly, too shortly. It’s hard enough having divided loyalties without either party adding pressure of their own. To be fair, Sherlock hasn’t done this at all. Is it perverse of him to wish that he would? “If Sherlock needs me for this, I have to be available. This is _important_. Moriarty needs to be stopped. Him, or whoever’s behind this.”

Mary subsides into silence at this. Then, after a little bit, she changes positions, stretches, and then leans in, her mouth near his ear. “I’m tired. Take your pregnant wife to bed, Doctor Watson.”

He presses a kiss into her forehead. “All right.” He gets to his feet and pulls her to hers, trying to banish thoughts about Moriarty, the endless worry, what Sherlock is doing about it all right now (without him), out of his head. This is his life. This was his choice. 

***

John texts Sherlock the next afternoon from the clinic, just a short message. 

_So, what’s going on? Can I_  
 _help? I want to help. I’m here_  
 _whenever you need me._

He thinks of how taciturn he was about breaking into Magnussen’s office and wonders why he reacted that way. Oh right, he remembers: between Sherlock’s supposed relapse and then the shock of Janine, he’d been right annoyed. That was ridiculous and thinking back, he couldn’t believe he’d bought it for a moment, that Sherlock was actually in a relationship with her, but Sherlock was an appallingly good actor when he wanted to be. John had been beside himself with disbelief, talk of dinner and double dating, of all things. It was ridiculous that he’d been more shocked by that than by the supposed relapse, but he was and it was annoying. Even after he’d found out it was a ruse – on both sides by all accounts, the very thought of it still sends him into a fury. Somehow Sherlock had deduced Janine’s connection to Magnussen and his media conglomerate early on and used it to get Janine thinking that he’d been falling into old drug habits and relying on her to sell that tidbit to the papers as well as ensuring that Magnussen himself knew about it. Still – seeing the headlines about _Seven times a night at Baker Street_ and all that just hadn’t sat well. 

There are a damned lot of things that aren’t sitting well, frankly. What a terrible three months it’s been. Since the night he’d agreed to meet Sherlock in the empty house in Leinster Square and learned the truth about who had shot him, learned the truth about his wife, everything had just been so damned complicated. He spent the autumn drifting back and forth between the flat and Baker Street, almost entirely ignoring the inhabitant of the former and mostly ignoring the inhabitant of the latter, though Sherlock was completely peaceable about John’s moods, content to let him scowl silently at his laptop or the newspaper, speaking occasionally and responding to John, but never pushing him to talk. He’d been unreasonably angry with Sherlock for siding with Mary, even on the topic of his own shooting, angry with Sherlock for actively trying to solve the problem of his marriage. For interfering. He knew it was unreasonable, and he knew he was better off knowing about Mary. And given the choice, he wouldn’t have wanted to go on not knowing who’d shot Sherlock. He’d have dug, talked to people. He couldn’t believe that Sherlock had forgiven it himself, never mind that he’d urged John to do the same. But he’d forgiven Sherlock, and while he wasn’t sure that forgiveness was an option with Mary, he’d made a commitment to accept her as she was, provided that he didn’t have to live with detailed information about it. He was filled with doubts about how long he could fool himself into thinking he could live with the unwanted knowledge and all of the deliberate gaps in it, but he was determined to give it his very best shot. He’d committed himself to Mary. And they were having a child. Determination could go a long way and he knew how stubborn he was capable of being. 

By the end of his shift at the clinic, Sherlock still hasn’t responded to his text. John sighs and goes home. Mary is standing at the stove and turns to smile at him when he comes in. John goes to kiss her on the cheek and she says, “You just missed Janine. She says hello.”

Janine. John tries to keep the scowl off his face and fails entirely. “What did she want?”

Mary’s brow crinkles. “Just to visit,” she says, smile slipping. “You’re not still angry with her for the tabloids, are you? Sherlock did use her very badly; it was quite justified, I thought.”

“He was counting on her to sell him out all along,” John tells her, the frown not budging. “That’s why he got involved with her. That, and access to Magnussen.”

Mary turns back to the pot she’s stirring. “What makes you say that?”

“It’s why he was feigning a drug problem,” John says, knowing in his gut that it’s the truth. “He wanted her to tell Magnussen, get it into the news.”

“He wasn’t feigning being high the day you came across him,” Mary says, giving him a _honey-you’re-being-a-bit-of-a-moron-don’t-tell-me-you’re-really-that-naïve_ sort of look. 

John feels this is a bit below the belt; she knows how devastated, how furious he’d been to find out that Sherlock had started using again. “Yeah, well,” he mutters, the wind taken out of his sails, “I suppose you’d have to be using if you wanted to get rumours started. And,” he adds, a touch defiantly, “Molly admitted later that it was only one hit’s worth in his system.”

Mary glances at him and adjusts the heat. Gives him a tight smile. “If he’d gone long enough between hits you know it wouldn’t have shown in the test either way. He was sleeping there regularly, or at least not at home. Janine said.” She sighs. “But I suppose you could be right. You’re such a loyal person,” she says, which should be a good thing but she makes it sound as though she’s not quite sure. “He’s lucky to have you. And so am I.”

John leans in and kisses her temple. “Please,” he says. “Don’t. Just don’t.”

She tenses, but nods. He moves back again and she turns away to reach for the pepper mill. “He really is lucky, though,” she says, meaning Sherlock. 

“So am I,” John says. “So are you. I mean, look at him. He shot Magnussen to protect us, so that he would always be kept quiet.”

She gives him a sharp, quizzical look, as though accusing him of mentioning her past when he’d just said he didn’t want to talk about it, but says, “True. And going on the run for two years all because someone hired a sniper to point a gun at you.”

John blinks. “What?”

Mary stares at him. “What do you mean, ‘what’?”

John stares right back. “What are you talking about? What sniper?”

For a split second he thinks he sees something like panic on Mary’s face. Then it’s gone and she’s focusing on the meal she’s preparing again. “I just assumed he would have told you,” she says, calm and unbothered. “Maybe he didn’t think it was important. That was the other reason why he jumped. Moriarty had threatened you.”

John is reeling. This is completely new information. All Sherlock had said when he demanded _I don’t care how you did it; I just want to know why!_ was that Moriarty had to be stopped. He never said a word about snipers. The thoughts swim about in his head for a moment or two and then something else clicks. “How did _you_ know?” he asks Mary. 

She shrugs. “Sherlock mentioned it once. I just assumed you knew. Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Like I said, maybe it just wasn’t something he thought was important for you to know. Or stopping Moriarty was the main reason so he just didn’t think of mentioning it. I don’t know. Would you get the colander from under the sink? Bending down has got to be a bit of a challenge.” She smiles at him and pats her belly. 

John does it automatically, hearing Sherlock’s voice in his head: _Only lies have details. Deflecting. Changing the subject. Reminding you of the reason you have to stay._ Shut up, Sherlock, he thinks angrily, and bangs his head on the underside of the counter as he stands up. This is something he’s going to have to think about, and very carefully. He decides to file it away and think about it hard later, when he’s alone. He changes the subject. “Speaking of Janine,” he says, trying to sound casual, “How on earth was it possible for there to have been all this ‘Seven times a night at Baker Street’ rubbish, then, if Sherlock was always sleeping at that place?”

Mary looks surprised. “Obviously that was pure invention,” she says. She looks terribly amused. “No, Janine was complaining that she’d never even got properly ‘taken advantage of’ for all her trying. I told her that perhaps she wasn’t quite his type…”

She’s laughing, but something in John’s middle just hollowed out a cave in his abdomen. “What do you mean, ‘his type’?” he wants to know. It occurs to him that it sounds suspiciously jealous, so he tries to make a joke of it after the fact. “Human?”

Mary smirks at him, and if she sees through it, she doesn’t let on. “Precisely. Set the table?”

“Right, yeah,” John says, distracted. It would be slightly distressing, if he let himself think about it at all, even the smallest fraction, how relieved he feels about Janine. And, further down, how disturbed he feels about that bit about the sniper – and how he found out about it. 

***

It’s been five days now and he’s going spare. Sherlock never ignores him entirely like this, not unless there’s a really good reason. _Think_ , he tells himself. _What do you know?_ It’s the part of his mind that’s started to think in Sherlock’s voice, which is a bit disturbing, but hardly unexpected. He knows that Moriarty is back. The newspapers have been exclaiming loudly over this for days, but are printing nothing particularly new. It’s a lot of waffle with no real information. The headlines are still full of shock and sensationalism. ENGLAND’S BEST MINDS SEARCH FOR CRIMINAL MASTERMIND and SHERLOCK HOLMES INVESTIGATING RETURN OF MORIARTY and MORIARTY LIVES!!!!! for the fifth day in a row. The news channels play the clip of Moriarty’s “Miss me?” in its varying tones in a loop. What John can gather is that they know nothing about it, absolutely nothing. The second thing he knows is that Mary absolutely refuses to talk about Moriarty. It scares her, she says, and she doesn’t want her fear to upset the baby. Doesn’t want to think about a genius terrorist on the loose in the seventh month of her pregnancy, when all she’s thinking of is the fragile new life she’s about to bring into the world. Which is fair, John thinks, but it doesn’t sit entirely right. The third thing he knows is that Mary knows something about Sherlock that he doesn’t, and that’s never okay. That’s big, something he absolutely should have known. Something that he doesn’t believe Sherlock would have told Mary without telling John himself. He’d have known that Mary would tell him, and if he’d wanted John to know something like that, something that big, he would have said himself. Is it true? John doesn’t know. He wants to ask Sherlock – as though it’s possible to casually bring that up one night in the sitting room at Baker Street. _Oh, and by the way, I know you’ve never said, but when you faked your death and were on the run for two years, did you also maybe do it to save my life? Because I’d have really liked to know that, I really would. That’s important. To me, you tit, if not to you._ If it’s not true, then what made Mary say that? What could possibly have motivated her to tell him that? She clearly thought he knew, which is what makes him think it’s true. 

And if it’s true, that raises a whole new crop of questions. Why didn’t Sherlock tell him? This is new, this side of Sherlock that would seemingly do anything to make John happy. He’s seen it but he doesn’t understand, not yet. How Sherlock could forgive Mary for shooting him. Was that just about keeping John happy, fixing his lie of a marriage for him? He loves Mary, but he also knows very well that shooting his best friend is a deal-breaker. Obviously. So why did Sherlock talk him around? Oh yes, it took two and a half months for John to be able to accept it, but what was Sherlock’s ultimate motivation for it? It couldn’t have only been John’s happiness. He knows that Sherlock loves him more than he loves any other person alive, but things are never that simple with him. So what’s the end game? What is he doing, and – and this is the underlying question of them all – does it have something to do with Mary? Finally, he knows that Sherlock is avoiding him and that while this is not entirely uncharacteristic, this level of silence decidedly _is_. QED: something is going on that Sherlock is trying to protect him from, something he can’t tell John about. Otherwise, why is he not texting, not appearing on the front door step and trying to recruit John into another illegal, possibly suicidal mission? It’s Moriarty: surely Sherlock would want him for this. The last time he went head-to-head with Moriarty without John there, it was because he was about to stage his own spectacular death, and if the sniper bit is true, then it was at least partly to protect him. So is Sherlock protecting him now, and if so, from what, or whom? 

Moriarty? That seems obvious, as Moriarty has targeted John twice before. But then, isn’t that all the more reason to keep John close by? The other answer seems too obvious, but there is suspicion sitting like a millstone in John’s gut. He lives with a former assassin. Is married to her. Loves her. (He _does_. This is irrefutably true.) But she’s retired, left that life. Pregnant. In no state to go doing – well – anything, really. 

_But if she left that lifestyle when she met him, why did she still own a gun with a silencer? Her assassin outfit?_ Sherlock had described what she’d been wearing when John asked. It had been an evening in late October, the two of them sitting in the Baker Street sitting room in silence. Sherlock was busy with his laptop, across from John in his chair. John had been trying to read but couldn’t focus, so finally he’d asked. Sherlock had paused, asked gently – for Sherlock – if he was sure he wanted to know, and when John had insisted, Sherlock had sighed and told him. A concise, accurate description. A small bit of John’s heart had crumbled even further, hearing it. He’d been able to imagine Mary in her red coat, blonde hair mussed, upset as she pleaded with Magnussen for the documents, prepared to shoot him only as a last resort. But this: Mary in a form-fitting black jumpsuit, utility belt, woollen hat like a ninja, silencer already fixed to the muzzle – no, she’d clearly come with the intention of killing him. Magnussen. And instead she’d shot Sherlock. 

Something occurs to John now. He’s gone for a long walk around the neighbourhood, just needing space, needing to think, needing to not be with Mary for a few minutes. It strikes him that he never saw Sherlock’s wound. Where, precisely, he was shot. When he’d asked, Sherlock had more or less brushed it off, saying something vague like _Well, not in the head, obviously_. It had to be somewhere on his torso. He’d never been able to understand why Mary couldn’t have just shot him in the knee and at least given him more time to bleed out. Or the shoulder. They could have had matching scars, John thinks for a fleeting moment, almost amused until he remembers that his shoulder scar came from Afghanistan, while Sherlock’s would have come from _his wife_.

He’s done it again. Got angry. Thought about it too much. But what choice does he have? He feels like he’s missing pieces of the puzzle and that everyone around him knows more than he does and won’t share. He’s not Sherlock or Mycroft or Mary. He’s smart, solidly smart, but he’s not a genius. He just has to work it out on his own, at his own, painfully slow pace. John scowls at an offending rubbish bin that’s too far out on the pavement and shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. He decides that he wants to see Sherlock’s scar, see exactly where Mary shot him. He wasn’t allowed in the operating theatre. He was only ever told that it was a very close call. Why had it been necessary for it to be that close? No one was going to tell him this. 

On impulse, John pulls out his phone and calls Sherlock. No answer. He stops walking and types out a text, abandoning his earlier efforts to sound casual, nonchalant. 

_Sherlock, please. I’m going out of my_  
 _mind. You don’t have to tell me what’s_  
 _going on if you can’t for some reason_  
 _or another. But I need to see you. Please._  
 _I’ll come to you, anywhere you are._

He wants to add something like _Come on, don’t be a total wanker for once in your life_ , but he doesn’t want to annoy Sherlock. He presses send and reflects for the thousandth time that Sherlock really is like a drug, and one that John does crave constantly. 

He’d thought he could leave that life behind, as Mary apparently left hers. Perhaps they were both wrong. Or perhaps only John was. He didn’t know. That was the problem: he didn’t know, and he’d said he didn’t want to know. His head hurt. 

John’s phone pings in his pocket. His heart gives a bound and he tries to tell himself it’s not Sherlock; it’s probably Mary wanting to know where he is. But it _is_ Sherlock. Finally. The sheer relief. Even if all the text says is that he’s busy or something, it would be _something_. 

_John, you’re putting me in a_  
 _bit of a delicate situation. It_  
 _would be better if you could_  
 _try to be patient. I know it isn’t_  
 _your forte._

John stands where he is, chewing his lip indecisively, trying to decide how to respond, when another text comes through. Sherlock again. 

_Why are you so anxious to see me?_

That, at least, he knows how to respond to. He types as fast as his thumbs will go. 

_I need to talk to you. About a_  
 _few different things, actually._  
 _I wish you could tell me about_  
 _the situation. Is it Moriarty? Are_  
 _you on a stakeout or something?_

Sherlock texts back immediately, and just the sensation of him actually paying attention to John again is a relief, somehow. 

_You could call it a stakeout of sorts._  
 _Give me a couple of days. Can it_  
 _wait that long?_

John can live with a couple of days. He just can’t live with nothing, with radio silence on Sherlock’s end. 

_Absolutely. Let me know where_  
 _and when and I’ll be there. You’re_  
 _sure I can’t help with this? I want to._

And Sherlock texts him back, as puzzling as ever, 

_You are helping, in a way. I’ll see_  
 _you in a couple of days, then._

And then, thirty seconds later, 

_PS: Be careful. But you don’t need_  
 _me to tell you that._

What? What do either of those mean? “What the hell,” John mumbles aloud, squinting at the screen. How like Sherlock to leave him with a couple of riddles. He feels miles better about everything, though, even if he doesn’t understand any of it. He starts walking again, finally settled enough to start back toward the flat. 

***

The next morning John is walking to the bus stop, wishing he weren’t on his way to the clinic as usual but off chasing something more interesting with Sherlock when a too-shiny black town car slows at the kerb beside him. John keeps walking, shoulders hunching reflexively. He hears the mechanical sound of a window being opened. “Doctor Watson,” Mycroft says formally. 

John presses his lips into a straight line and stops moving. “What do you want?”

Mycroft quirks an unimpressed auburn brow at him. “I was under the impression you wanted to help,” he says. 

John forces his shoulders to release. “I do,” he says cautiously. 

“Get in the car.” Mycroft disappears behind a mirrored window again. 

John opens the door and slides in across from Mycroft, biting back a comment about having been on his way to work. After all, if he wants to help and Mycroft is finally letting him in on whatever it is he and Sherlock were doing, work is going to be his last priority. Still, he can’t help the instinctive retort from springing to his mouth. “When are you going to learn to just use a phone like a normal person?”

Mycroft eyes him coldly. The glass partition between the body of the passenger area and the driver is closed off. There is no one else there, no Anthea, no ubiquitous MI5 agents. After an uncomfortably long silence goes by, Mycroft says, “Listen to me, John. You don’t like me and at the moment I’m afraid it’s rather mutual, though that hasn’t always been the case. Judging by your numerous and increasingly desperate-sounding text messages to my brother, it would seem that you’re quite invested in being involved in this case.”

This seems to call for a response; at least Mycroft has paused to allow him one, so John nods. “Yeah,” he says, choosing to ignore the opening bit (rude) and the bit about Mycroft knowing just how whiny his texts to Sherlock had been. “I do. It’s important to me.”

“I know.” Mycroft’s tone is bored. “What if I were to tell you that you already are involved, that your behaviour at this time is one of the most important parts of this case?”

John frowns across at him. “How?”

Mycroft favours him with another heavy dose of scrutiny and silence, then changes the subject. “How much would you say that you care for my brother?” he asks abruptly. 

John flounders for a moment. “That’s not exactly the sort of thing one can quantify, is it?” He shrugs. “He’s my best friend. The best friend I’ve ever had. I care about him a lot. Immensely.”

“But you’d let him condemn himself for you?” Mycroft examines his finger nails as though completely disinterested in John’s response. 

Magnussen, John thinks. He’s referring to Sherlock having shot Magnussen for John’s benefit. “That wasn’t exactly something he gave me a lot of choice about,” he points out. 

Mycroft returns his cold stare to John’s. “When you and I first met, I found myself wondering whether your presence in Sherlock’s life would prove to be a positive or a negative influence. Over four years later, I’m afraid I still can’t make up my mind. You are aware, I presume, that he would not have survived that mission. He said as much himself to you – twice, as I recall.”

So he can lip-read, too. Of course he can. John fights down the urge to sigh again, and rallies. “It’s Sherlock,” he points out. “He survived jumping off a hospital roof. He survived whatever it was he all went through for those two years that he was away. I have every faith that he would have survived again, no matter what you sent him into. Sherlock always survives.”

Mycroft favours him with a look that’s something of a mix between contempt and disappointment. “He is mortal, I assure you,” he says, voice dry. “And you are incorrect on this occasion. Six months was the maximum Sherlock could have survived. I would have given any other agent two to three weeks at the most. It is precisely because of my brother’s extraordinary abilities that I gave him as generous as estimate as I did. My private calculation was closer to four months.”

John remembers suddenly, the moment when he’d asked _And after six months, what then?_ and recalls the way Sherlock’s face had tightened imperceptibly. _Who knows?_ he’d said. Something hot and unhappy blooms like blood welling from a wound in John’s gut: Sherlock had believed Mycroft. Believed he was going to his death. And he had gone willingly, gone for John’s sake. Steeled himself visibly, his extended arm a barrier between them, establishing distance, not wanting John too close, then turning and walking with practically military posture to the plane, not looking back. John had refused to believe it then, told himself that Sherlock would pop up somewhere or other soon enough. He sees it now: Sherlock thought he was going to his death. And had done it for _him_. So that he could be happy with Mary. Had waited for the witnesses to arrive before shooting Magnussen with John’s gun so that it would be crystal clear that it hadn’t been John. John feels dizzy. 

“Yes,” Mycroft says, watching him intently. “Now you understand. Finally. Do you see?” he asks. “You are important to him. Far more important than Moriarty is to you. I could have put the question the other way: how much do you think my brother cares for you? I think you know, at least if you can be honest with yourself about that. So if he tells you that he can’t allow you to be a part of this, you must accept that he is doing it for your benefit, that it is the very best thing that could be done for you. I have tried to reason with him on this matter and am assured that it is quite a lost cause. The least you could do, therefore, is to allow him to work the way he sees fit. You cannot see him. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” John says, hating that he sounds so confused in front of Mycroft. “But why? Why can’t I help?”

“Because,” Mycroft says simply. “I told you: you already are a part of it.”

“But _how_?” John demands. 

The car slows to a stop and he sees that they’re outside the clinic. “Good day, Doctor Watson,” Mycroft says without taking his eyes off John. 

John contemplates refusing to get out, demanding answers, but he knows from sorry experience that this would be futile in the extreme. He gives up, slams the door shut, and goes into the clinic, almost too disoriented to concentrate for the first two hours of the day. 

***

Sherlock texts him unexpectedly that afternoon. 

_Read this but don’t text back. Head’s_  
 _up, John: you’re being monitored._  
 _At the clinic, at home and possibly on_  
 _the streets. Go into the supply closet_  
 _and text me back from there if you_  
 _have to. I can’t any say more just yet._  
 _Be very careful, John._

And if _that_ isn’t disturbing as all hell, he doesn’t know what is. He’s confused and only half there for the rest of his patients that afternoon. Before he leaves, he takes off his lab coat and steps into the supply closet to text Sherlock back. 

_I’m in the closet. Har har. I’m_  
 _really confused. Your brother_  
 _paid me a visit this morning. He_  
 _was as charming as ever. Said I_  
 _can’t see you._

John sends the message and waits. Will Sherlock respond immediately or should he leave and risk being seen the next time he wants to text back? Sherlock resolves his dilemma by texting back at once. 

_Good, wise precaution. Don’t send_  
 _texts anywhere you think there could_  
 _be a camera. Don’t text from your flat_  
 _either. Always a chance someone_  
 _rigged it. Don’t bother about Mycroft._  
 _I’ll see you in a day or two. Stay in touch_  
 _and be careful. Let me know if anything_  
 _seems odd or out of place to you._

John frowns at the message. Odd or out of place? What does Sherlock _mean?_ With _what?_ It’s odd and out of place that Sherlock has been hidden out of sight since he got off the plane; not even the most zealous of the tabloids have been able to get fresh footage of him. He puts his phone carefully into his trouser pocket and exits the darkened closet and goes to put his coat on, still bothered. The thought of a camera in his flat is definitely reminiscent of Moriarty. It would be easy enough; they don’t even have a burglar alarm. He takes the bus home, finally able to let his thoughts roam freely, unwinding and cautiously settling on what Mycroft said in the car that morning. 

So: Sherlock definitely thought he was going to die, and accepted his fate willingly. Was that all for John’s sake, or was there something else going on? John had assumed it was just that Sherlock was being punished with an unpleasant mission rather than face a prison sentence – after all, he had shot a man in plain sight of a dozen witnesses. It felt unfair – someone should have given Sherlock a medal for ridding the world of one of the nastiest men to have ever crawled the surface of the earth, but justice was the last thing on anyone’s mind, apparently. 

Sherlock had been different since his return: more open, laughing more spontaneously, more outwardly affectionate. And yet, despite all that John had promised him about things not changing, obviously things changed when one’s best friend got married. It was inevitable, not that he’d wanted to admit it to himself. Sherlock had come back thinking to surprise John, unaware of the avalanche of wrath that would erupt when he’d done so, uncomfortable and taken aback by its intensity. An intensity which, John recalls, even Mary had been startled and bothered by, telling him to calm down, forgiving Sherlock with an ease that had felt positively traitorous that night. And it was as though she couldn’t quite grasp the depth of John’s anger, and he couldn’t explain it, couldn’t share it with her. Couldn’t quite share Sherlock with her, truth be told. Their odd alliance had seemed bizarre to him, but he’d reminded himself that it was better than the two of them fighting for his loyalty, his attention. He’d never seen Sherlock accept another girlfriend the way he had instantly accepted Mary, once he’d acknowledged her presence at all. It was odd and had stayed odd, right up to the moment where she’d hugged him goodbye, Sherlock kissing her on the cheek. Yet Sherlock hadn’t said a word to Mary upon exiting the plane, hugging John in a demonstration of clear relief before Mycroft had ushered him off to one of his bloody cars. Without so much as a glance in Mary’s direction. 

John thinks of him, alone on the plane and headed out into a world he’d thought he’d left behind with his return to London, and his heart gives a pang. Honestly, he’s barely thought of what Sherlock must have gone through back then – Sherlock never mentions it and John has respected that and left it alone. But the thought of him going back into a situation like that with the certain knowledge that he wouldn’t return – and possibly thinking that he wouldn’t be missed this time, since John had Mary and the baby coming – is almost more than John can bear. Sherlock had said as much at the wedding, about John not needing him any more with a baby on the way, and John had laughed, assuming it was one of Sherlock’s overly-dramatic jokes – only Sherlock had disappeared shortly after that. John hadn’t noticed until later (he’d been busy dancing with his brand new wife, for Christ’s sake; he thinks he should be forgiven this slip), but when he’d asked around, Molly said he’d left right after the first dance. Not a joke, then. But what was John supposed to do about it? He was married. That was an alliance that, by definition, was supposed to come first. But it didn’t feel right, having left Sherlock out in the cold, as it were.

And then everything that had followed, Sherlock getting shot (yes, by Mary, he crossly answers the voice in his head that so helpfully reminds him of this), recovering at Baker Street that autumn as John came and went. Meekly allowing John to monitor his morphine usage, though refusing to let him change the bandages, content to sit there with him in the silence of John’s conflicts, his rage-filled, heart-shredding thoughts. One night, it had been too much and John had exploded with a fist on the table beside his chair. Sherlock had looked over at him, diagnosing, then silently got up and disappeared into his bedroom, returning with a bottle of very old, very good whiskey. He’d poured them both a generous amount and set a glass on the table near John’s fist without a word. He’d lit the fire earlier and they’d sat there in a silence that was somehow more companionable than it had been before, the firelight turning the whiskey in Sherlock’s glass to liquid amber. Surprisingly thoughtful. That was new, an aspect of Sherlock that hadn’t been entirely absent before his two years away, but had become decidedly more evident, particularly during that long autumn. And somehow, at the end of that, John had chosen Mary all over again, leaving Sherlock alone. It isn’t fair. 

He’s made his decision, so why all the second-guessing? John stares through the smudged glass of the bus window and tells himself that he knows the answer, knows why he doubts what he’s done. Because he is yearning to be with Sherlock in an almost physical way, a gnawing ache in his gut that has nothing to do with Mary in any way and everything to do with Sherlock. He will always need to be with Sherlock in some way. Mary had always filled the gap somewhat – more than that; it’s unfair to relegate her to nothing but a stopgap measure to block the pain of Sherlock’s absence. She is his wife and was his lover before that and he treasures what they have, or what they had, at any rate. He doesn’t know if it can truly be saved, but he’d meant it with his entire heart when he said what he’d said on Christmas Day at the Holmes’. And yet none of that has anything to do with his need to be with Sherlock. God help him, he couldn’t have lasted a month without him again, never mind six – never mind forever. 

Unbidden, John’s throat tightens and his eyes prickle uncomfortably. He hasn’t cried in a very long time. He can’t remember when the last time is, and he can’t quite put into words, not even in his head, why he should feel like crying now. But he does. He’s grateful that the commute is long and that the traffic is heavy. He knows for a fact that if he knew precisely where Sherlock was right now, he’d go to him in a heartbeat, even if Sherlock wants him to stay away. He doesn’t; John is sure of that. It’s all part of the case, somehow. All related to Moriarty. Is someone watching him right now? Watching him swallow around the lump in his throat, transparent as he always is when he’s feeling something intense? He glances toward the front of the bus, and yes, there’s a camera. Will Moriarty’s people have penetrated even the city’s public transit CCTV? Undoubtedly, he thinks. Moriarty and cameras: it’s almost as bad as Mycroft and cameras.

John leans his forehead against the dirty glass and closes his eyes. 

***

It’s nearly six when he gets home. Mary isn’t home. He tries to remember if she’d said anything about going out, but that doesn’t matter – she’s certainly allowed to go out without consulting him if the whim arises. He won’t text and ask; she hates it when he does that. It’s important to show her that he trusts her, now more than ever. _If you trusted her, you wouldn’t have to remind yourself of that_ , says the voice in his head that sounds like Sherlock. Only it isn’t Sherlock; Sherlock has very specifically never said anything of the sort about Mary. It’s him, then. All right, so fine, maybe he doesn’t trust her entirely. How can he? How can he possibly trust blindly when the enormity of her lie calls into question every single thing he ever believed about her? He loves her, but love and trust are not the same, don’t necessarily go together. 

He putters around, tidying up for lack of anything better to do, then checks his email. Remembers that Sherlock said there might be cameras. Nothing in his email is too sensitive, but he supposes his laptop itself could be bugged. After nearly two years of working with Sherlock, he knows very well that nearly nothing is impossible when it comes to surveillance and observation. The thought makes him feel edgy, but if he’s being watched, it’s more important than ever that he act normally. Eventually he gives in and texts Mary. 

_Was thinking of making supper._  
 _Should I wait for you?_

He sends it, then thinks of an add-on: 

_I can, if you like. No rush. xo_

He waits for half an hour, but there is no response. That’s odd; she normally does respond. This whole day has been bloody peculiar. John gives up and starts to make spaghetti. Something easy. Something normal. He chops garlic and minces onions (Mary hates being able to notice the onions in the sauce but he likes them, so he’s learned to be stealthy about their inclusion), adds dried oregano and rosemary and basil to the can of diced tomatoes. John adds healthy shake of grated parmesan, a splash of the leftover pinot noir in the fridge, a several shakes of freshly-ground pepper and turns down the heat to let the sauce simmer. It’s nearly ready. His phone pings. He takes it out, expecting it to be Mary, but it’s Sherlock. 

_I miss your spaghetti. Reminds_  
 _me of the old days._

And it’s so coincidental, so touching and so funny at the same time that John nearly smiles at the phone, remembering just in time that he’s not supposed to be seen texting Sherlock. He puts the phone back in his pocket as though it was a completely unimportant message and drains the pasta. Sherlock only rarely commented on his cooking, but spaghetti had been something of a staple, along with the countless take-out meals. How like Sherlock to predict that after John’s confusing and disorienting day that he would go home and make spaghetti. He doesn’t suspect for a moment that Sherlock is the face behind the silent surveillance; he knows better than that. The text sends him into a moment of poignant nostalgia for those days, those beautifully uncomplicated days at Baker Street, so strongly linked with the taste of the spaghetti. Without Mary there to jolt him back into the present, he can very clearly imagine that he’s there again. Before Sherlock’s supposed death. He’d thought things were complicated then, but they weren’t. They weren’t at all. Life was a good blend of high-stakes cases and cozy domesticity. He’d thought he could live with just domesticity. That it was what he wanted.

And the strange thing is, he could essentially have that again, only with Mary now, were she so inclined. It’s not the same, though. For one thing, he knows that no matter what a dick Sherlock can be sometimes, he is always on the side of justice and truth. He would scoff, remind John yet again that he’s no hero, but the truth is that he _is_. His reams of grateful clients are proof of that. While Mary, on the other hand… went rogue, from the sounds of it. Ex-CIA, private-for-hire assassin. Magnussen’s chuckles as he’d thought about, as he’d imagined fondling Mary’s file in that disturbing, nearly pornographic manner he’d had ( _had_ , John reminds himself fiercely, past tense thanks to Sherlock), are proof enough that Mary had decidedly not been on the side that John and Sherlock had always taken. It’s quite possible that she did want a full break with that life, though. Whereas John… thought he did. Now he’s not sure. He thought he’d wanted a wife, house, children, stable job, normalcy. If he hadn’t wanted that, he could have stayed with Sherlock, had Sherlock not left. For his sake, a quiet voice reminds him. And he doesn’t want that life with Mary. He wanted the lie, both about her and about himself. He wanted to be someone who wanted to settle down and be… regular. But he doesn’t. Both Sherlock and Mary explained that to him very pointedly. And if Sherlock was silently telegraphing that John had had everything he wanted in _their_ relationship, in what they had, he hadn’t said it explicitly. 

It’s true, though. Alone at the table in his flat, John finally acknowledges this to himself. He didn’t want that life with Mary. He never saw that potential in her, wasn’t looking for it. He absolutely wanted it with Sherlock, back in the day. Still wants it. He can see that this is inconsistent, that if he wants a life that blends the danger with the calm, the adrenaline with the comfort, then he could reasonably expect to have it with either person. Except it’s not about choosing between Mary and Sherlock. It’s about acknowledging that he wasn’t being honest with himself when he chose Mary in the first place, that it’s never been honest when it comes to what he thought he wanted. He didn’t know what he wanted. But all of that time with Sherlock, even despite their bickering, he’d been happy, a bone-deep contentedness that was completely satisfying. What he wanted was a lie, perhaps not a large a lie as Mary’s had been, but to the same end: he told Mary with his actions that he wanted a quiet, domestic, normal life. She told John with her actions and words that she was a quiet, domestic, normal woman. She wanted to be that, perhaps, but it wasn’t what she was, and John doesn’t want what she was. He wanted the lie. Even leaving Sherlock out of it, this is completely true. But now that everyone has shown him what Mary really is, herself included, can he still pretend it’s something else?

Suddenly he can’t eat anything more. The stark, bleak truth has filled whatever space in him was left after the spaghetti. He wants to be with Sherlock. Sherlock, who drugs him and insults him and takes him for granted, and is never anything less than bluntly, brutally honest, unless he’s not speaking at all. Sherlock, who apparently loves him so unconditionally, so deeply, that he would literally give his life so that John could live the one he thought he wanted – the one that Sherlock knew he didn’t – in peace. He puts his head in his hands, suddenly dizzy. 

***

Mary doesn’t return that night at all. John is late leaving for the clinic after a restless night, late by almost half an hour, and she’s startled to see him. “Oh, hello!” she says, smiling and already apologetic. “I thought you’d have left – I’m glad I caught you!”

John stares at her for a moment. “Where have you been?” he asks. It’s too blunt, but he can’t help it. One’s wife does not just stay out all night without at least texting and then turn up acting like nothing’s happened. 

Her eyebrows lift. “Didn’t you get my text?” she asks. “I wondered why you didn’t answer.”

“What text?” John is terse, his shoulders tensed. 

She covers her mouth. “Oh, John! No wonder you didn’t text back! I’m so sorry! I was staying with a friend overnight. Carrie. She and Mark just broke up and she wanted some company. We watched chick flicks and ate reams of unhealthy food. You know. And then it got late so I just thought it would be easier to stay. I can’t believe you didn’t get my text!”

Carrie was one of the bridesmaids, John remembers. Short girl, bit awkward. “I texted you around six thirty,” he says slowly. “To ask if I should wait for you or eat without you.”

Mary is all concerned innocence. “I’m so sorry, John. I didn’t get it at all. Perhaps Carrie’s flat is in a network hole or something.”

John thinks privately that this is quite unlikely, but keeps it to himself. “All right,” he says, making his face relax. He puts his hands on her shoulders and kisses her on the cheek, adding, “I was lonely without you,” just to allay any suspicion. 

She smiles at him, relieved, and clutches at his arms. “Aren’t you going to be late?”

“Already am,” John says. “So yeah, I should be off. See you later?”

“Of course.” She smiles again and John pulls the door closed behind him. 

Once he arrives at the clinic, he apologises to the receptionist and says he’ll just be a few minutes. He takes out his stethoscope and turns on the computer, all in deliberately-paced normal routine, then casually walks into the supply closet and texts Sherlock. 

_Any chance that day could be_  
 _today? It’s really important. I_  
 _need to see you, in person, if_  
 _at all possible. I could come to_  
 _Baker Street, if you like?_

There’s no immediate answer, to his disappointment, so John emerges from the closet with a box of pharmaceutical samples he doesn’t need, and buzzes for the first patient. He feels his phone vibrate in his pocket during the fifth patient, the last before lunch, and finds something that needs putting away in the closet. Sherlock’s text says _7:00pm_ , followed by an address and a complicated string of directions, with the added instruction not to deviate from said directions in any way. John feels his brows contract in confusion – not Baker Street, then – and texts back _I’ll be there._

***

It’s the longest afternoon that has ever existed, even counting that first day after Sherlock’s return, but it does finally come to an end. John checks his phone for the directions again, then proceeds to take Sherlock’s painstakingly roundabout directions to 189 Camden High Street. The northwest corner of the street, the instructions said. Flat E on the top storey. Between changing tube lines and two different buses for good measure before approaching the building from the alley and taking the fire escape to the first storey before finding the emergency fire exit stairs to the top, it takes John close to two hours to get there, which he supposes is precisely the reason Sherlock gave him two hours from the end of his shift. He should have known, he thinks ruefully. He stops in front of unit E and raises his hand to knock, but the lock snicks open from within before his knuckles make contact with the wood. 

Sherlock cracks the door open, sees him, then opens the door. “Inside, quickly,” he says, voice low and tense. He moves away, giving John space to enter the room, surveying him as he looks around. 

It’s very much a disused studio flat. Uninhabited, possibly for years. There is a double bed in one corner, hastily made and obviously recently slept-in. Otherwise the only furniture is a single wooden chair and a stove, a miniature fridge sitting on the worktop. John’s eyes travel over the solitary room, then come to rest on Sherlock’s face. “Nice,” he says, going for light humour. “This where you’re staying these days?”

Sherlock shrugs. “Bolt hole,” he says. “I needed to be out of Baker Street.”

“Why?” John asks, this question taking momentary precedent over the reasons he’s come. It’s all part of it, really. 

“It was being watched,” Sherlock says, eyes intent on his face. “John…”

He stops, as though not certain how to continue, and that’s wrong, so very wrong, because Sherlock _always_ knows what to say. “Yeah?” John says, filling in the gap. 

Sherlock takes a careful breath. “Why… did you need to see me so badly?” he asks, the question sounding strained for all that he’s clearly tried to make it come across casually. 

He can’t just launch in, can he? “Er,” John says, looking around. “Maybe we could sit down? It could take a bit.”

Sherlock looks no less troubled, but goes to the chair and moves it over to the bed, gesturing John toward the chair as he perches on the edge of the bed. He’s wearing a white button-down shirt, too tight, as always, and black woollen trousers. Barefoot, which should be incongruous but somehow it isn’t. John follows him and sits, feeling overdressed in his jacket and shoes, so he takes the jacket off. The flat is a bit cool, but not bad. Sherlock watches him, eyebrows raised, waiting. Careful: everything about his demeanour is cautious, gestures chosen with precision, betraying nothing. 

“Uh, well,” John starts. He clears his throat. “I had a couple of things I wanted to ask you. I’d really like it if you could answer me honestly. If you can’t tell me, I’ll try to understand, but please – if you possibly can, I need to know the truth.”

“Okay,” Sherlock says, sounding even more guarded. “What did you want to ask?”

“Moriarty,” John says. “When you faked your death, it wasn’t just to stop him.” He waits for Sherlock to say something, either confirm or deny this. 

Sherlock does neither. “He had to be stopped, John,” he says in that tone that says _obviously; don’t be an idiot, John_. 

“But that’s not the only reason,” John presses, dogged. “You were protecting people. Me.” He waits again. Sherlock doesn’t say anything. He has gone tense, waiting for John to continue. “He threatened me again, didn’t he? That’s one of the reasons why you had to go through with it, fake your death. Is that true?”

There’s a long silence. Sherlock’s eyes have moved away from his face, moving rapidly, calculating. Then he seems to remember that John is there and nods, just once. “Yes,” he says finally, as though it’s an afterthought. 

“There were snipers,” John says. “Or a sniper.”

“Snipers,” Sherlock confirms. “One for you. One for Lestrade. One for Mrs Hudson.” His eyes lock on John’s. “How did you know? I didn’t tell you that.”

So it’s true, what Mary said. Now for one of the other two most important questions. More than two. He doesn’t know how many there are. He should have made a list. He doesn’t have a mind palace, after all. “Did you tell Mary about that?”

The words are quiet, but fall like small rocks on the hardwood floor between them, and this is it, the moment of truth about Mary. He can feel that Sherlock knows it, has already come to the conclusion that John doesn’t know yet, won’t know until Sherlock answers his question. Sherlock drags his eyes from John’s knee to his face and John can see that this pains him, having to say it. “No,” he says, very quietly. 

And John can _see_ the truth there, see that Sherlock knows it, that Sherlock knows that he knows it, and neither of them needs to say anything more. Except that John hasn’t finished. “Your scar,” he says, as quietly as Sherlock. “I need to see it.”

Sherlock winces. “It’s not necessary,” he says. 

“I want to. Please.” John is quiet but firm. Insistent. 

“You never asked before,” Sherlock says. The air is very still, yet very charged between them. “All those evenings at Baker Street. If you were having d – ” He stops himself abruptly. 

“I’m asking now,” John says. Before he can stop himself, he’s reaching over and unbuttoning the highest fastened button of Sherlock’s too-tight shirt, the expensive fabric soft and rich under his fingers. He can feel Sherlock’s eyes on his face as he watches his fingers work, going to the next button. It feels exquisitely intense, but there is nothing stopping this from happening. He _needs_ this information, needs to see the scar. When he’s got Sherlock’s shirt all the way open, he pushes back the two halves of it off Sherlock’s too-sharp collarbones, down off his shoulders. “Stand,” he requests. Sherlock obeys silently. The bullet wound has only just finished healing, the nearly-perfect circle pink and raised against pale, firm skin. A chest shot, like he thought, only much too centred, much too high. A shot there could have hit the liver, broken ribs, causing massive internal bleeding. In fact, he thinks belatedly, that’s exactly what must have happened; the bullet must have nicked the floating rib on the right side. It could have punctured a lung. The shot was on the right, so at least it wasn’t a direct shot to the heart, but the fragments of rib could have easily worked inward to stab it from within, laying waste to everything in their path. By all rights Sherlock should have died. John can feel his heart in his throat. Can feel that Sherlock is aware of every single thing he is thinking at the moment. That he is finally putting it together, in his own, slow way. He can’t look at him. “You – ” His voice doesn’t work. He clears his throat, tries again. “Sher – you should have died.” His voice is shaking. He touches the raised circle, warm to his fingers, unable to stop himself. 

Sherlock doesn’t refute this, and doesn’t object to the touch. Instead, he puts a hand gently over John’s. “John.” His voice is low and persuasive, uncannily so, and John is unable to resist the magnetic drag of his eyes upward to Sherlock’s. Even so, the look is so penetrating, so blue, that John feels laid completely bare by it. Sherlock’s voice is still low, despite the intensity of his gaze. “I did die,” he says quietly. “My heart stopped. The doctors had given up. I made them swear not to tell you. Or anyone else.”

His hand is trapped under Sherlock’s on his chest, unable to tear his eyes away. It’s too much; he needs space. He manages to retrieve his hand and sit back a little, shaken. “Why did you lie? You said it was _surgery_. You said she saved your life.”

Sherlock shakes his head and sits down on the edge of the bed again. “ _You_ saved my life. That was the lie. She never called 999.” 

He can’t process this, there are too many questions, but one truth is emerging beyond all of the questions, somehow the most important thing to him right now. “You did that… for me. You lied to save my marriage. To make me happy.”

He’s watching Sherlock, waiting for a response, and Sherlock gives it to him, as though it’s the simplest fact in the world. “Yes.”

“Even though she shot and killed you.”

“Illogical, I know.” _This_ , Sherlock actually sounds apologetic about, the idiot. 

John shakes his head, but the truth is becoming ever more evident. “You did that – all that – jumped off a building to save me, lied about my assassin of a wife killing you to make me happy, saved her and thereby me from Magnussen even though you knew it would lead to either a very long term in prison or else certain death on Mycroft’s MI6 mission – all for me.”

“Yes,” Sherlock says, and suddenly his eyes are nervous, flicking around the room, avoiding his. Like a caged animal. 

John wants to touch him, but in light of what he’s about to say, he thinks that might be a little bit too much, too intense for Sherlock. “You love me,” he says. It’s not an accusation – it’s just a statement, but with room for just a sliver of question, a space for Sherlock to safely deny it, call it something else, but John is sure of at least two things now, and this is one of them. 

Sherlock doesn’t dodge it, though. Doesn’t say _Of course, John, you’re my best friend. Of course I do._ His eyes and face are so open it’s painful; John feels like he’s looking into a vault that’s never been opened before. “Yes,” he says again. Just a simple confirmation, as though it isn’t the single most devastating thing anyone has ever said. 

John feels the vertigo swirling around him. It’s utterly overwhelming. “Is there anything you wouldn’t do for me?” he asks, trying to laugh but it’s shaky and very nearly a sob. 

“No.” It’s still very quiet, just a simple confirmation, very certain. 

John swallows down the lump of emotion. “Jesus Christ, Sherlock! Why didn’t you ever tell me?” he demands. “Was it – was it always like that, even before?”

“Yes,” Sherlock says, and it doesn’t matter that he’s only answering in _yes_ or _no_ , not when the questions are what they are. 

It’s too much and it’s not enough and John is an idiot, a complete dick for not having seen it. There were hints – hundreds of hints – but he’d chosen to turn a blind eye, hadn’t he? Always rationalised it away, told himself it wasn’t that, that they were just friends. “Oh, God,” he says inadequately. 

“John,” Sherlock says, slightly uncertain, but there’s something else there that’s very certain, and very wanting. 

John looks at him and knows then that it’s something he absolutely wants and is capable of giving him, something he never thought he would do, but the only reasonable thing any person could do just now. He leans forward, puts his hand on the back of Sherlock’s neck, and kisses him. Sherlock doesn’t resist it, doesn’t tell John that he’s flattered but that John is mistaken, has misunderstood, that he’s not really interested in this. He goes still, and after a moment John pulls back again, staying close but not sure of Sherlock’s response. 

“I – ” Sherlock says, then stops. His eyes are closed and he swallows. “Again,” he requests, fighting to get the word out, and John obliges in relief. This time Sherlock responds, lips tightening against John’s. John’s hand is still on the back of Sherlock’s neck and Sherlock brings one up to the back of John’s head, fingers gripping the short hair there. It’s a bit unpractised on Sherlock’s part, strangely so for a man who feigned a month-long relationship with someone, but lacking in all of the assured polish of his fake-boyfriend voice and act. It’s raw and uncertain and John thrills at this. He opens his mouth a little, drawing Sherlock’s lips apart with his, tongue tentatively touching Sherlock’s full lower lip and the shudder that runs the length of Sherlock’s spine doesn’t miss him. John feels a gush of breath escape through his nose and surges forward, deepening the kiss, getting his other arm around Sherlock’s torso. Sherlock’s arm comes around his back, his mouth opening further under John’s, his tongue pushing back against John’s, the slide of lips and tongue and breath all terribly, terribly sensual to John, and Sherlock is groaning, very softly, just a vocalised exhalation, and John thinks again that he is a complete and utter nitwit. This is the only thing that was missing, before, and having it fall into place at last, after so much time spent not knowing he wanted it, not knowing that Sherlock wanted it, it feels like the best and most painfully, wonderfully fulfilling thing John could have imagined. 

When they finally break apart, John wants to say about a thousand stupid, terribly sentimental things, but the words have all got tangled in his brain. He licks his lips and moves the hand on the back of Sherlock’s neck to rest on his jaw. “I love you,” he says. 

Sherlock opens his eyes and smiles, a real smile that comes from the deepest, least-explored place in his heart. “I know,” he says. “I’m glad.”

“You’re an idiot,” John tells him, trying not to laugh. “You should have told me a long time ago. It would have saved us both a lot of trouble.”

Sherlock looks at him for a long moment, as though debating his choice of words, and really, there’s so much grist for him to return the insult, grist that John doesn’t want to think about just now. He knows it will have to happen soon enough and will be extremely ugly when it does, but for now – this is taking priority. He needs this. And maybe, he thinks, maybe Sherlock does, too. Sherlock leans forward a little, silently asking for it, and John gives it to him. Their mouths come together again and there’s no hesitation on either side now; Sherlock’s mouth is strong and certain on his, his technique already more assured, tongue curling against John’s in a way that goes straight to his groin. John finds himself leaning so far forward that he’s not on the chair at all any more, and that’s reminiscent of something – the stag night, yes – he’d blocked that out quite effectively later, hadn’t he? – and Sherlock feels it and responds by leaning back and pulling John down onto him. It takes some rearranging, Sherlock swinging his long legs up onto the bed, John kicking off his shoes, but then Sherlock is saying his name in that low, throaty voice of his, deep and naked with want, unlocking something in the very core of John’s body, his hands pulling John down to him as John finds his mouth again. Sherlock says his name again between kisses. “John, please,” he says, the plea raw with a desire John has never heard in his voice before. “ _Please_ ,” he says again, tugging John closer against himself. 

He couldn’t have said no if he’d wanted to, and he definitely doesn’t want to. John gets his hips lined up over Sherlock’s, puts their bodies together in a way they’ve never been before, for all their years of being a bit too physical for men who were just friends. They’ve never done this before, never acknowledged all that was unspoken between them, never given in to it. It feels strangely natural, though John has no doubt that neither of them has ever done this with a bloke before. He has suspicions – wonderful suspicions – that Sherlock is more or less entirely inexperienced in bed, and is determined that this will change as of right now, here with him. It’s new and yet it isn’t: it’s Sherlock, and Sherlock is home and excitement and danger and comfortable silence and spaghetti and firelight all at once and every movement he makes is something that John innately expects, knows, welcomes. They’re moving together and it’s like dancing in the sitting room, only much more honest this time, Sherlock’s desire hardening in unconcealed conspicuousness beneath John’s answering erection, and Sherlock’s hands trail almost delicately down his back to his arse. John groans; he can’t help it. It should be simple, almost innocent, but it’s Sherlock, which makes it incredibly erotic. It has nothing to do with the fact that it’s a cock beneath his and everything to do with the fact that it’s Sherlock. There are too many layers between their bodies. He sits up and pulls off his jumper, then reaches between them, getting the button of Sherlock’s trousers undone. Sherlock catches on quickly and silently, getting John’s jeans open and his hand inside before John has even finished wrestling down the zip of Sherlock’s trousers. He gasps as Sherlock’s fist closes around his cock, the contact sending jolts of arousal through his body, so strong that he stops breathing for a moment. Those hands, those large, delicate, beautiful hands of Sherlock’s, on his body, touching him so intimately, is such a massive turn-on that John can barely take it. He finally succeeds in shoving his own hand into Sherlock’s pants and there it is – Sherlock’s cock, undeniably hard – for him – in his hand. His throat closes and he stops moving for a moment, almost too overwhelmed to take it all in. 

Sherlock is still watching him, eyes half-lidded, but as alert as ever. “John,” he groans. “Don’t stop and think _now_ , when you’ve come this far. Just – do this, with me. Please.”

It’s as much a plea as John’s ever heard him give, and he knows that at the heart of it all, this is what he came here for. To be with Sherlock, in any way that he possibly could. If he’s frozen for a second it’s only because it’s so overpoweringly good, so solid, so dependable, despite being completely new ground. This, he can trust. And he does. He trusts Sherlock implicitly. (He was a fool. Put his trust in the wrong person, made the wrong choice.) “I’m not panicking,” he says, his voice rough. “I think I’m – ”

“What?” Sherlock asks, almost a demand. They’ve still got their hands on each other. “What is it?”

John bends his face to Sherlock’s. “I love you,” he says, emotion choking him. “I’m an idiot. I love you. You should have told me that I did. You should have deduced it and told me what I am, what I wanted.”

Sherlock stares back at him, pained. “I couldn’t,” he says. “It had to be you, John. You had to figure it out for yourself. So I gave you everything I could to make you happy instead.”

“Tell me again,” John says, nose almost touching Sherlock’s. 

“I love you,” Sherlock says, unhesitatingly. “John. I love you.”

John exhales heavily and begins to move again, twisting himself into the tight circle of Sherlock’s fist, his own gripping and sliding up the surprising length of Sherlock’s cock. They stop talking, Sherlock pushing his other hand down the back of John’s pants to grab at his arse, pulling it to himself in time with John’s thrusts against his body. Everything is beginning to tighten already; John is moving faster and Sherlock is writhing under him, rare profanities slipping over those lips, lips that John can’t stop kissing, even though he can hardly breathe and is beginning to see stars. Sherlock moans and gets their cocks closer, the knuckles of their hands scraping until John gets it and moves his out of the way so that Sherlock can wrap his large hand around both of them, and fuck if that doesn’t feel amazing in ways John didn’t know existed, to have another cock – _Sherlock’s_ cock – rubbing against his, the movement contrasted with the external rhythm of Sherlock’s fist working over them both. They were so close to this the night of the stag do, he realises in retrospect. Perhaps it should have happened then, before the wedding. If he’d only known then what he knows now – but this is no time to be thinking about that, not when Sherlock is panting against his mouth, coming undone in a way he has never let John see before. The very thought of it makes John groan against Sherlock’s mouth, sparks of pleasure collecting low in his pelvis and gathering heat, crackling within him. He opens his mouth to breathe a warning but Sherlock is a step ahead of him, as always, his cock jerking hard against John’s before erupting over both their stomachs. All of the pleasure building bursts into flame at this, the last stimulus he can possibly take before losing it, and the orgasm hits hard, his balls drawing up and rapidly shooting out his release over Sherlock’s knuckles and belly. The wave crests again, his cock pushing out another shot or two. Sherlock’s cock is still twitching in his fist, and John goes limp against him. 

Sherlock recovers first, putting a hand on the back of John’s head to bring their mouths together again. After, he says, “Is it always like that?”

“Like what?” John asks, blinking a little and trying to find his thoughts and make them make sense again. 

“Like – that,” Sherlock says, his considerable vocabulary failing him for a moment as he searches for terms to fit around this. “Earth-shattering. Brilliant. Incredible.”

Three adjectives, all of them perfect. “No,” John says, fighting down the tightness in his throat again. “Not always. But this was definitely all of those things.”

He shifts sideways a little, still trying to gather his thoughts. He feels anchored again, in a way that he hasn’t since before Sherlock died. There is a massive expanse of problems ahead now, but he and Sherlock are on the same page and solid. There is more talking to come, but they had to do this, establish this, embody the depth of their trust and love for each other. Renew their partnership, only in a new and deeper way. It was always this, always going to become this. Only it hadn’t yet, had never had a chance to, and when Sherlock came back, John was effectively gone in that sense. Gone in the sense of the potential for this. But not any longer. They are together. Neither one has said so, but they are definitely together now. 

After a little, when Sherlock swallows and speaks. “We have to talk,” he says. “Does Mary know you’re here?”

“No. Of course not,” John says. “I did exactly as you said, I kept it all terribly quiet. She didn’t come home last night, by the way.”

“Yes, I know,” Sherlock says. “Oh, John.” He turns his face on the singular pillow and leans his forehead against John’s. He sounds terribly apologetic. “You must know by now,” he says softly. “You’ve got questions. Suspicions. When she let slip that she knew about the snipers, you must have guessed.”

John speaks slowly, not entirely certain, but horribly afraid that Sherlock is right and he does know. “I – have suspicions, but I don’t know anything exactly,” he says. “I’m not you, Sherlock. Please. Just spell it out for me.”

Sherlock releases him. “I was so afraid you would hate me for this,” he mutters. “But I thought you must have started to suspect, at least. There was no danger if you didn’t suspect. There is no Moriarty, John. Mycroft set that up, partly to get me out of the mission and partly to draw her out.”

“Did you know?” John asks. 

“No,” Sherlock says swiftly, and it’s honest. John can feel that much in his gut. “He didn’t tell me until after the plane landed. I really thought I wasn’t coming back. It was his dual solution to getting me out of the mission, which certainly would have proven fatal in the space of a few months – Mycroft said six, but I suspect three or four would have been more accurate – and to find out what Mary would do.”

“So,” John says, trying to piece it together. “Was she one of the snipers, then? Or in cahoots with Moriarty? Or what, exactly?”

Sherlock pulls back far enough to look him in the eye. “You really might hate me for this,” he says, reluctant. “But I read the memory stick.” He pauses, waiting for John’s reaction. 

John isn’t all that surprised, honestly. “When?” is all he asks. 

“Two days after she gave it to you. I knew that you wouldn’t read it. I predicted you’d probably have it destroyed, whichever way you decided. I thought you wouldn’t want to know, but I also thought it was important that someone know. I got it out of your jacket pocket one night when you were staying at Baker Street.”

That was about ninety-five percent of those nights in autumn, John thinks. Sometimes he had spent the evening at the flat, not talking to Mary, and then rather than facing another night on the sofa, would take a bus to Baker Street, let himself in with his key and quietly climb the stairs to his old bedroom. More often he spent the evenings there, too. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for Sherlock to find the memory stick and quietly memorise its contents while he was sleeping. “And?” he prompts now. “I assume Mycroft knows the contents then, too.”

Sherlock has the grace to look apologetic about that. “Yes,” he says, and at least he’s honest. “She was a freelance assassin, codename Atropa Belladonna. I knew that much, but never found out who she was when I was looking for them. Her disguise was too good. I found the other two assassins and… dealt with them. She was Moriarty’s primary assassin, used in operations all over the world. Moriarty had hired her to target you. You know what a crack shot she is.”

John refuses to admit aloud that he’s been bothered all along that Mary is likely a better shot than he is, and he’s not exactly half bad. Atropa Belladonna. A poisonous yellow flower. He thinks of Mary’s dyed-blonde hair and shudders slightly. “Was I her target, specifically?” he asks, hearing how bleak he sounds. 

Sherlock surprises him by putting an arm over John’s torso, protecting him from, possibly, the strength of his own reaction. “Yes,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry, John. I don’t know what the plan was, if she was told to stay close to you in order to be on hand if I ended up being alive after all, or what. I would guess that that was the plan, but that she did honestly fall in love with you, I think. So when I did turn up, it must have been a horrible conflict for her. And finding out that Moriarty was alive – Mycroft has footage from the airfield of her reaction, and she was terrified. And at that point, the mission was on again, only I became her target, not you. I knew too much. I always had. From the moment I met her, I deduced that she was hiding something large, that she was a liar, but I didn’t know what she was lying about. And she knew who I was, knew of my skills of observation. I had to befriend her in order to allay suspicion that I thought anything was amiss, because I didn’t want to endanger you. The night she shot me, she also came to my room and threatened me, wanted me to give my word not to tell you. I didn’t tell you, but I ensured you both found out and that she still thought of me as an ally.”

John finally understands. “You gave her an alibi,” he says. “You never let on that you died, at least for a minute or two, said that she called the ambulance before I did. Urged me to stay with her.”

“I was certain that she loved you – loves you,” Sherlock corrects himself, “but I didn’t know what she would do if you decided to leave her. I couldn’t take that chance.”

John puts his hand over Sherlock’s. “But all that while, you loved me. Wanted this. But for the sake of my safety, you never let on. You would have left me to go to Eastern Europe to be killed in some ridiculous suicide mission and left the lie of my marriage in place.”

“It’s not a lie,” Sherlock says. “You love her. She loves you.”

He mercifully doesn’t mention the baby. John doesn’t even know what to think of that, can’t even contemplate it. “It’s certainly not what I was looking for,” he says with a sigh. “But you’re right; I didn’t even know what I wanted. I had everything I wanted in you.”

Sherlock is quiet for a moment, then says, “I thought that when you found out what she was, you wouldn’t have any need for me at all any more. You would have had everything then – danger, marriage, a hetero-normative relationship, all of that.”

“I think it’s the opposite,” John says, and means it. “I was just a bit of an idiot. It might even be that Mary really wanted to leave all that behind – but I didn’t, I guess. But I didn’t want those two things. It was one or the other: a wife and kids and the suburbs, or you and Baker Street and danger.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Sherlock says roughly, but his arm tightens unexpectedly. “You could have had it all in one person. I can’t give you most of that.”

“I guess I didn’t really want it that much, then,” John tells him. Their eyes meet. “But it’s not the same, either way. You’re _good_ , even if you’re a dick about it sometimes. Mary – I don’t even know the sordid details, but obviously she was always on the other side. One of Moriarty’s lot. It’s hardly fair to you to compare the two of you. And anyway, it’s you I need to be with. You that I want. I finally know that. Sorry it took me so long.”

“You always were an idiot,” Sherlock says, but kisses him. It goes on for a longish while, and John’s heart is bursting even though his entire life is in shreds around him. 

“What happens now, with Mary?” he asks when he can think again. “What will she do about Moriarty? She’s barely said a word about him at the flat.”

“This is precisely what we’re waiting to see,” Sherlock says. He props himself up on one elbow, his other hand still resting on John’s torso. “Knowing that Moriarty is alive means that she will need to make a choice. The first option is that she needs to fulfill her contract and kill you. I personally find this an unlikely choice, but Mycroft is less certain. Hence, you’ve had a protection detail assigned since the moment you left the airfield with Mary. It’s also why I’ve been monitoring the tone of your texts. I rather thought that you would start to have suspicions if Mary’s behaviour changed at all. That did happen: at some point you discussed Moriarty and she let slip that she knew about the snipers. I had never told you about that, so how could Mary have known? Second option: Mary tracks Moriarty down and kills him instead. This option makes the most sense to me: it fits with the fact that she loves you and is willing, as you heard her say herself, to do anything to protect the life she currently has with you. I believe that she is currently playing what she thinks of as a game of cat-and-mouse with Moriarty: kill him before he kills her.”

“Only there’s no Moriarty,” John says. 

“No,” Sherlock agrees. “She’s chasing smoke. Hiding from nothing. Observed at all times by Mycroft, who has been slipping tiny, tiny clues into the media coverage and watching Mary pick them all up. The third option is less clear, and it has everything to do with you.”

“With me?” John echoes. “How?”

“She’ll be watching you, how you react to all of this,” Sherlock says. “If she thinks for one moment that your loyalty might be wavering, Mycroft believes you will be in danger. Certainly if she were to find out about… this,” he says, hand stroking over John’s chest. “If she were to have followed you here and found out what happened just now, neither Mycroft nor I have any doubt that she would kill us both.”

John feels like he’s been hit by a lorry. He blinks, trying to take this all in. “So – were you counting on me to come to this conclusion?” he asks. “To – come and find you, and… do this?”

Sherlock smiles suddenly. “I had hoped,” he says. “I thought that perhaps once you started to have suspicions, you would decide that I was the better option. I was never certain for a moment that you would, though. Even if you had only chosen me in a platonic capacity, rejecting Mary in any way would have proven fatal for you, I think. That was why it was so important that you stay with her – but you were never entirely safe with her. Not from the beginning. Mycroft’s psychoanalysis shows that she would have always been tempted to return to that lifestyle. None of the three of us are capable of settling down, it would seem. But when I stumbled across her in Magnussen’s office, I sealed the fact of your danger. I had discovered her.”

“Didn’t that just seal the fact of _your_ danger?” John asks, not quite following. “I mean, she wanted to keep it from me, not kill me.”

“But if you had found out, you would have rejected her – as you did. It was only through my cautious alliance with Mary that you gave her a chance at all, and even then it took you months to make the decision to stay with her, a decision that you almost immediately second-guessed,” Sherlock tells him. “Mycroft had done a check on her when you first started dating her, but she had buried her background so deeply that it took even Mycroft awhile to prove it false. Atropa Belladonna is wanted in seventeen countries. My deal with Mycroft would have ensured that she was left alone, allowed to keep her life with you.”

John feels a spike of annoyance. “And you didn’t think at all that I might want to have a say in all that?” he asks. “Sherlock – you and Mycroft can’t just decide other people’s lives for them like that!”

Sherlock frowns at him. “We didn’t,” he says. “John – it was always your choice. I gave you the choice from the beginning. I never told you my deductions about Mary’s falseness from the beginning. I knew that you would eventually find out who had shot me and so I engineered a revelation that would be safe for you, allow you to make the decision on your own terms, with me there to protect you should it have gone badly between you and Mary. This has been more Mycroft’s project than mine until the day I was shot – that was the day that changed everything, made it all more urgent. Mycroft was insistent that I keep my silence as best as possible, be nothing but a devoted best friend to you and be as friendly with Mary as possible.” Sherlock hesitates. “He was also convinced that something like this would happen between us eventually, and was aware of the danger that would put you in. He has been prepared to snatch Mary off the streets since the day I was shot, but it had to be your decision, John. Do you see? You had to be given time to come to your own suspicions, to choose for yourself to side with me.”

John feels love pooling hotly in his chest, mingled with anger and a tightness that he can’t get to release. It’s starting to make sense. “Because if Mycroft had just seized her, you knew how much more painful it would have been for me – and how it would have damaged everything between us,” he finally manages to say. He looks Sherlock in the eye. “That’s right, isn’t it.” It isn’t a question; he knows. 

Sherlock nods slowly. “Yes,” he says. “I’m sorry, John. But you’d already suffered quite a lot of trauma and there was never any way this marriage was going to end well for you, but I tried to find the way to make it the least painful. So that as much of it as possible happened on your own terms, without destroying the other primary relationships in your life. I was trying to ensure that you would still have me, feel you could trust me. I didn’t want you to lose us both, either through bitterness on your part, or, well, my death. Again,” he adds. 

John’s fingers go to the bullet scar again. Sherlock inhales sharply but allows him the touch. “I see,” he says. “Been playing the long game, then. All just to keep me both alive and content. That’s – Sherlock, that’s – completely extraordinary. And you would have died to make your plan work.”

Sherlock smiles tentatively. “There was always a slight chance I could have survived – there’s always a chance, John. But I wasn’t expecting to find it, no.”

“Because you love me _that_ much.” John looks up, searching Sherlock’s face. 

Sherlock lowers his mouth to John’s but stops just before their lips touch. “Yes,” he says, his breath warm on John’s lips, and then he’s kissing John again. 

John responds with every bit of passion he possesses, dragging Sherlock onto him, their legs fighting and tangling, Sherlock’s arms shoving under his back and holding him so close John can barely breathe, and it doesn’t matter; it’s not even close enough. This extraordinary man, this self-professed sociopath, has literally sacrificed everything to the point of his own life just to keep John safe, to allow him to make the wrong choice of lifestyle, of partner, of everything. All because he loves him _this_ much. John doesn’t half deserve him, but is fiercely grateful, profoundly moved by it all, in a way that trumps any anger he has over Sherlock and Mycroft’s manipulations of his life. He gets it, he understands how much Sherlock really has let him choose this, tragically thinking that it’s what John thought he wanted, even if in his heart Sherlock suspected he would have been better off with him. He wants to cry. He wants to laugh. He wants to shake Sherlock and tell him what an idiot he is, confess what an idiot he himself has been. He settles for getting all of his limbs twisted around Sherlock’s body and kissing him breathless. 

When they finally come up for air, Sherlock looks dazed, pupils so dilated that the blue of his irises has shrunk to tiny rings around the pools of black. He’s out of breath, his hair wild from John’s hands, lips swollen and wet. “I love you,” he says, the words still sounding new and slightly foreign to him. “John Watson. You – you actually chose me. Chose this.”

“Evidently,” John says with a breathless laugh. They kiss again and again and John can’t help but think that this is the only thing in his life that makes any sense. Sherlock. It was always Sherlock. He always knew that, but used to occasionally resent how much space Sherlock took up in his life. Now he sees that it was quite inevitable: Sherlock _was_ his life. No: that sounds co-dependent and overly romantic at the same time. He had a life with Sherlock, a life they both loved deeply, centring around each other, sharing a particular work, supporting each other in their own ways and finding just the right balance between tranquillity and excitement, and it was a life he’d grieved losing for years. He knows that he still loves Mary and it feels like his loves exist on different planes of reality, because they’re both entirely real. But with Mary, there has apparently always been the chance that she would kill him. And while he’s joked or complained that one of Sherlock’s experiments or adventures would one day kill him, Sherlock has just demonstrated the very opposite, that he would literally do anything not to keep John, as Mary would, but to keep him happy and alive, whether or not that equation included himself. It’s a love so selfless that John can’t quite take it in and knows he doesn’t deserve it in any way, but it’s so breathtaking and profound that he could not possibly choose Mary over Sherlock now. That bridge was already crossed several minutes ago, but he reaffirms it in his head: he has chosen Sherlock. And the relief in his gut tells him that it’s absolutely, one hundred percent the right choice. 

Awhile later, he says, “So what happens now? What do I do? Do I stay here with you?”

Sherlock gives him a satisfied, deeply happy look at his question, at John’s apparent willingness to stay, but shakes his head. “No,” he says. “If you want out – if you truly want to make this choice, of me over Mary, then we have to extract you carefully. For the sake of your safety and also of your child’s, we have to choose every move with caution. We don’t know what Mary will do. Mycroft will move things forward, now that we know for sure where you stand. You’ll have to go home and keep acting as though everything is normal between you. Make up something believable to explain your absence. Drink with Stamford or something. He doesn’t like Mary, by the way. That was why he didn’t attend the wedding. She knows how he feels about her, so she won’t ask too much about it. And then we wait.”

John feels a bit disappointed. “I can’t be more involved?”

“John.” Sherlock gives him that _you’re being an idiot again_ look. “You literally _can’t_ be more involved. Your presence there is vital. But I won’t be far away at any time. Obviously, don’t tell her about this. Don’t let on that you have any doubts, any suspicions. It would probably help if you act a bit annoyed about not having seen me, though don’t overdo it. Only lies have detail. Subtlety will be very important. Mycroft will send her a false message from Moriarty, and depending on how she reacts to it, we’ll know the way forward.”

John nods. “Okay,” he says. 

“John.” Sherlock is still lying on him, weight partially propped on his elbows. “There’s one other very important thing that we haven’t discussed. Your child.”

“It’s not as if I’ve forgotten that,” John says dryly. “I just have no idea what to think about it, what to do about it. I suppose, depending on what happens and whether Mary’s in prison for the rest of her life or extradited to wherever it is that she’s from, I may never even see the baby.”

“Or you could be awarded full custody,” Sherlock points out. “How would you feel about that?”

John feels like the question is a bit of a punch to the gut. A baby at Baker Street. It doesn’t seem realistic. “Could you handle that?” he asks, dubious. “Having an infant around?”

Sherlock frowns at him. “Well, it wouldn’t be my first choice,” he says, a silent _obviously_ tacked on. “I don’t know what sort of step-parent I’d make, but if that’s what happens, that’s what happens. It’s your child, John. If you end up having full-time care of her, I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

John feels his eyebrows lift nearly to his hairline. “Really,” he says. “You and a baby. You would look after a baby. For my sake.”

Sherlock scowls now. “You can believe that I’d kill snipers and Magnussen and any number of unsavoury criminals who have threatened you through our work, but not that I’d be willing to help you raise your child?”

John feels a bit chagrined at this. “Well, when you put it that way,” he says. “I just don’t see a kid fitting into our life.”

“Well, we don’t know what will happen,” Sherlock says, diplomatically dropping the subject. He rolls off John and takes his phone out of his pocket. “It’s almost nine. You should get going.”

John gets to his feet and finds his jumper, then his shoes. “How is this going to work?” he asks. “Do I still go to work? Will you stay in touch?”

“Yes and yes. Carry on as though everything is completely normal. I’ll make sure that you know what’s going on,” Sherlock promises. “Mycroft might be in touch as well.”

“Spare me,” John groans. “He was very against my wanting to see you, you know.”

Sherlock smirks. “Please, John,” he says. “He was only trying to strengthen your resolve _to_ see me. It was only for your sake that we’ve waited. You had to let it go yourself before Mycroft could act.”

Oh. Of course. John shakes his head. “Remind me never to go up against the two of you at once,” he says, very dry. 

Sherlock picks up John’s jacket and hands it to him. “Here,” he says. “Go home. Pay close attention. Be careful about texting, even from the bathroom. Be aware that Mary will be watching your phone. Delete anything from me as soon as you receive it.”

John nods, takes out his phone and deletes the last few messages of their exchange, leaving a string of one-sided inquiries on his part, pleading with Sherlock to text him back. “Do you think it’s obvious, how I feel about you?” he asks. 

Sherlock smiles nicely. “Only when you’re drunk,” he says. “But she didn’t see that. Now: take the fire escape again. Then go to the tube and take the northern line to Old Street, catch the fifty-five and take it to Cambridge Heath and take the twenty-six home from there. Text Mary once you’re at Old Street, tell her you were out, apologise for not letting her know – could be revenge for her not having let you know last night, in which case it would be a good opportunity to ‘make up’ and assure her that everything’s all right now – and tell her you were out with Stamford. Have something prepared to say about it, but nothing too complex. If she’s tracking your phone, you’ll have to always be careful not to text if you’re with me. Have you got all that?”

“Yeah,” John says. “Bit circuitous, but I understand.”

Sherlock puts both hands on his shoulders. “I knew I could count on you,” he says, and leans forward to brush a lingering kiss over John’s forehead. “Call me if there’s an emergency. Go on, then. Be careful.”

John isn’t going to let him off with just that. He pulls Sherlock’s face down to kiss him again. “I’ll talk to you soon,” he promises after, and Sherlock nods, eyes still half-closed. John slips from the flat, hating to leave Sherlock there in its cold comfort, but understanding perfectly why he has to go and absorb himself in the act. Walking the short distance to the Camden Town station, he still feels dazed by all of it – by all of the revelations about Mary, about all that had been going on behind the scenes without his knowledge, yet so artfully engineered by Sherlock to give John the choice in spite of his refusal to inform himself about his wife. It’s ironic and a bit strange that the least complicated thing about all of this is Sherlock, how easy it had been to just close that last bastion of space between them, change their relationship in five minutes from the best friendship either of them has ever had to this. How automatic, how natural it had felt. How right. John tries not to smile to himself, just in case someone is watching, whether that’s Mycroft or Mary. 

***

He sends the text from Old Street, exactly as he was told. It’s odd that Mary hasn’t texted him, frankly, but perhaps she thinks he’s angry about last night. 

_Hey, so sorry I haven’t texted. Mike_  
 _Stamford wanted to know if I could_  
 _get a bite to eat and a pint after work_  
 _and I was taking the tube so I couldn’t_  
 _text. It slipped my mind, so sorry._

John stares at what he’s just written and realises it’s exactly what Sherlock told him not to do, provide too many details. He can always save those and bring them up if she asks. He deletes all of it and tries again. 

_So sorry, I went for a bite and a pint_  
 _with Mike Stamford after work. Should_  
 _have texted, sorry. On my way home. xo_

There. He presses send. Her response comes just as he’s getting on the bus. 

_I wondered. Thanks for letting me_  
 _know. I had the leftover spaghetti_  
 _for supper. Glad you’re coming home._  
 _xxxx_

John’s stomach rumbles, reminding him that he has not, in fact, eaten. At the next transfer point, there’s a curry stand so he buys a curry to eat while he’s waiting. He forgot about food entirely, and who could blame him, really. The bus arrives just as he’s finishing, as though Sherlock is even in control of that. John tosses the empty container into the trash and boards the bus, trying to get the knot in his stomach to unclench so that he can behave normally around Mary. 

When he arrives, she seems very pleased to see him. She seems utterly normal, and for a moment he wonders surreally if any of that just happened, with Sherlock. He knows very well that it did, but this other reality is so convincing, so believable. He touches her belly and asks how she feels. She assures him that everything is fine and tells him he tastes of curry. He explains that he ate at the pub with Mike. She asks why he didn’t text sooner and he’s able to use the line about the tube then. “Sorry,” he says, very sincerely. “Mike texted while I was walking to the bus, just a last-minute idea he’d had, so I just turned around and went to the tube, and by time I thought of texting you I was underground, and then it just slipped my mind by time I got to the pub.”

“Which leads me to believe that you didn’t spend your beer time complaining about the wife, then,” Mary teases. “Or else you’d have thought of it.”

“Exactly,” John says, smiling into her eyes. “No, we talked about work and patients and students and Mike talked a bunch about football. Boring, guy stuff.”

Mary is smiling back, unsuspecting, and for a moment John feels terribly about lying to her like this. He doesn’t – can’t bring himself – to feel guilty about Sherlock. Somehow, that belongs on its alternate plane of reality, where Sherlock is the only person in the world he could ever think of loving, of belonging to, yet here he is in his flat with his wife, and here and now it makes almost as much sense. Except. Except. He has to remind himself that the other reality is all real. This one is built on a lie. 

“Any mail today?” he asks, going to have a look at the small table where they usually leave it. 

“Just a bill,” Mary says. She yawns. “I’m going to turn in. You coming?”

“Yeah, in fifteen or so,” John says. “Just want to check my email and that.”

“All right.” She goes into the bedroom, leaving John alone. 

The bill is alone on the table, but John’s eyes catch sight of something else. A square white envelope tucked casually into a stack of old bills, all the envelopes torn jaggedly open. Rubbish, really, but they usually kept their bills. It’s the perfect place to hide something, somewhere that John wouldn’t have normally caught it. Not in the trash or the recycling, where he would see it at once. Not hidden in the bedroom or in Mary’s purse, which he has been known to go into to find things for her, search for missing keys, a lipstick, etc. Artfully hidden in plain sight. It’s labelled in square black lettering: ATROPA BELLADONNA. 

John feels cold. That’s her. That’s Mary. Proof, in his hands, not that he needed it. Her coin shot said everything he needed to know. He glances at the closed bedroom door. Can he take the risk of reading it? He hears the water running in the adjoining bathroom sink, thinks for a moment, then takes out a pair of spare rubber gloves from his work bag. He’s learned this much from working with Sherlock, at least. While the water is still running, John slips the paper out of the envelopes and reads. It’s very short. 

_Atropa Belladonna,_

_You betrayed your mission. If you value your life,_

_follow these instructions for its completion._

_Any deviations will be met with swift punishment._

_You know who this is. Any attempt to go to the police_

_will not be tolerated. Instructions to follow._

Mycroft, then. John replaces the paper stealthily, then slides the envelope to precisely where it had been in the stack of opened bills. The water is still running. He gets the gloves off without snapping the rubber and stuffs them in an interior pocket of his work bag. If she decides to search it, he has no idea how he’ll explain them. They’re not dirty and she’s not a forensic expert, he reminds himself. (How much better things would be if she were a forensics expert rather than an assassin.) He goes to open his laptop, sitting down with it on the sofa, and reminds himself that he’s given her no cause for suspicion. Not yet, at any rate. It’s ridiculous, but how can he go in there and lie next to her and pretend that nothing has changed? Another thought occurs to him: what if she wants to have sex? He’s not even sure he can come again so quickly. Would that be suspicious? He’s begged off before when he hasn’t been in the mood. He’s got to get himself cleaned up at any rate, in case her hands go wandering. Sherlock’s come is still crusted on his stomach. A shower, definitely. The water in the bathroom shuts off. 

He abandons his email and goes into the bedroom, passing Mary on his way into the bath. “Just going to have a quick shower,” he says. “Get the bar smell off me.”

Mary nods, smiling. “Then come to bed,” she says. 

John nods, feigning a yawn at the same time. “Sure,” he says. “Of course.” He goes into the bathroom and takes off his clothes. For a moment he just looks at himself in the mirror, the clear evidence of dried come all over his skin. He could never explain this if Mary for some reason decides to come into the bathroom right now. He wants to lock the door but that would be more suspicious than anything else he could do. Shower then, immediately, he tells himself, and wastes no more time turning the water on. There’s nothing he can do about his come-stained pants, so he balls them up and hides them in the travel bag his uses for his shaving kit, zipping it closed. How does anyone ever get away with adultery? he wonders for a frantic moment, then remembers Sherlock and that most people don’t, in fact. He steps into the shower and tries to slow his breathing, force the panic down. 

It’s stupid and sentimental, but he sort of hates cleaning the evidence off his skin at the same time. Never mind. He washes himself clean, being very thorough. What if she can smell Sherlock on him? Would she recognise the difference in their scents? Possibly. Probably. Would she really kill him if she found out he’d cheated? Maybe. Would she kill Sherlock? (Again, he reminds himself. She’s already killed Sherlock once.) Yes. Undoubtedly. But him? It’s possible, he admits to himself. Even despite the baby? asks the other voice in his head. Yes, John thinks heavily. Even despite the baby. She would do anything to keep him, wouldn’t she. It’s a desperation that speaks of darker possibilities of obsessive, manipulative behaviour. She’s already proven this, shooting and threatening his best friend for stumbling across her secret, ready and willing to shoot him again should he have been reluctant to keep her secret from John. Immoral. Very, very dangerous. 

John turns off the water and towels himself dry, going back into the bedroom with his clothes (minus the hidden undergarments) draped over his arm. Mary is reading by light of the lamp on the night stand and watches him as he removes the towel and steps into his pyjama pants, pulling an old t-shirt over his head. He gets into bed and she puts the book down and moves into their usual, comfortable position, curled against his side. He waits to see if she’s going to initiate anything, but she seems content to lay her head on his shoulder, tucking an arm around his torso. “Good night,” he says, and she responds sleepily. 

After a moment she reaches back for the light and switches it off. John lies awake in the dark for two hours, trying to understand properly what’s become of his life. 

***

Sherlock sends him a very long text just before his third patient the next day. John slips into the supply closet to read it. 

_Mary’s been given a note with an_  
 _ultimatum: kill you and complete_  
 _the mission or kill me. She’s to bring_  
 _proof to an Irish pub called Tipperary,_  
 _66 Fleet St. by tomorrow at midnight._  
 _Be careful, John. She’ll be looking for_  
 _me but she won’t find me. Mycroft is_  
 _tailing her. Careful not to accept anything_  
 _to eat or drink, though I know that will_  
 _difficult to do without looking suspicious._  
 _Perhaps it would be a good time to get_  
 _the flu?_

John thinks for a long minute, then writes back. 

_What if she chooses to try to find Moriarty_  
 _instead? Does she have any leads, or do they_  
 _all lead to nothing?_

Sherlock writes back at once, likely aware that John’s still in the supply closet. 

_There’s nothing solid to go on. She hasn’t_  
 _asked you if you have anything?_

John types back, _No, not once. Maybe she’d rather kill you again._ and steps out of the closet to eat the lunch he packed that morning. He can’t focus on anything. He still doesn’t know whether or not to believe that Mary would be as dangerous toward him as Sherlock and Mycroft evidently think. He can’t keep up with all of their reasoning, and it’s quite possible there isn’t time this time for him to work it out himself. His own little deductions will only get him so far, and he does trust Sherlock. 

Partway through the afternoon, John’s phone pings. He glances at it once his patient is gone. Mike Stamford. Coincidence? John has a bad feeling he can’t explain as he thumbs the message open. 

_Fraid I may have got you into trouble_  
 _with the missus. She called this morning_  
 _to ask which pub I was at last night. I_  
 _didn’t know what she was on about, said_  
 _I was teaching a class till nine-thirty._  
 _Should have given me a head’s up, mate!_  
 _I’d have covered for you! Hope I haven’t_  
 _put you in the doghouse for a week! We_  
 _should get that pint soon, though._

Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. John has a minor panic attack. In the closet he forwards the text to Sherlock. He debates calling him, but Sherlock texts back before he can. 

_Don’t leave the clinic. I’ll be there_  
 _in ten minutes._

That’s good news, is it? What is Mary thinking right now? John imagines her moving around the flat, looking for clues as to where he really was last night, searching with her pinpointed observational skills, fuelled by the insecurity of a woman who only just got over thinking that her husband was going to leave her. Should he text her? Why hasn’t she asked? John’s lunch sits uneasily. He buzzes the intercom and tells the receptionist he’s not feeling well and that sorry, he’ll need to cancel his last four appointments. Will Mary be checking his location, making sure he’s still at the clinic? Is she calling his other friends to see if he was out with one of them? Is she hunting for Moriarty? Sherlock? Mycroft? 

When Sherlock bursts into his office John nearly has a heart attack. “Jesus, Sherlock!” he exclaims, pressing a hand to his chest. 

“Sorry.” Sherlock is curt, all whirling energy, inspecting the room, dropping to peer under the desk, pulling open a random drawer of bandages on the examining table, checking behind the door. “Hear anything?”

“No,” John says. 

“This room could be bugged,” Sherlock says. “It fact, I’m certain that it is.” He takes three rapid steps toward John and speaks into his ear. “Don’t touch me or act like anything is different, just on the off chance she hasn’t guessed yet.” He moves away again. 

John nods, understanding, and begins a faux-conversation. “So, any new leads on Moriarty?” he asks, keeping his voice level. 

Sherlock is standing on his desk chair, pushing back one of the ceiling tiles. “No, the lead on the cheese factory didn’t go anywhere,” he says vaguely, automatically. 

John goes with it. “Cheese factory? I thought it was a textile factory you were checking out.”

“Definitely cheese,” Sherlock says, extracting a small camera from the ceiling. He shows it to John. “The audio pick-up is attached on a different system. This one watches only. The other listens only.”

John clears his throat. “Can you find the other one?”

Sherlock jumps off the chair and places the camera in the trash bin. “Possibly.” He cocks his head toward the corridor. “Although,” he says quietly. “We may not have to.” He listens for a moment, then speaks urgently. “John. Go into the supply closet. There are two bullet-proof vests on the top shelf. Get them. Quickly.”

John wastes no time and does as he’s told, finding the vests and bringing them back. He has never seen Sherlock willingly wear a vest before, even when Lestrade has offered them. Then again, he’s been shot by Mary before and possibly doesn’t want trust his chances of surviving it a second time.

Sherlock puts the vest on, cuts his eyes toward John and nods at the vest in his hand. “Put that on. Then put your coat on over it and get back into the closet. Please.” He’s already pulling his coat back on to hide his own vest. 

John gets into the closet, leaving the door cracked slightly just in time to see Sherlock turn to face the door, saying something to his wrist. John’s heart is in his throat. 

The door opens and Mary stands there, as he had originally imagined her: in her red coat, hair surprisingly neat, the bulge of her belly protruding. She has a gun in her hand, the thick barrel of a silencer fixed to the end. She stops in her tracks, seeing Sherlock. For a moment they just stare at each other. “You,” she says, and it sounds poisonous. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“One could ask the same of you,” Sherlock says, looking pointedly at the gun. “Are you going to shoot me again?” When Mary doesn’t answer, Sherlock takes a step toward her. His voice is low, almost conversational. “This could have worked out very well for you, couldn’t it. You came here to find your husband, and instead you found me. You’ve been looking for me, haven’t you?”

“I suppose you’ve been hiding somewhere,” Mary says, eyes not moving from his. “Yes, I have. And now I’ve found you. Where’s John?”

Sherlock shrugs. “Why? You don’t want him to see you shoot me – again?”

“Obviously I’d prefer that, yes.” Mary lifts the gun with both hands. “This time I won’t choose such a… negotiable spot. He’ll think it’s Moriarty, and you’ll be out of my way.”

“Let me just ask you something,” Sherlock says. “You came here for John, gun in hand. I presume you were going to kill him. Why did you give up on looking for me? That was your ticket out of this.”

Mary’s face hardens still further. “As if you don’t know precisely why. He’s a lying cheater.”

Sherlock lifts a brow. “What makes you say that?”

Keeping the gun steady with her right hand, Mary reaches into her left pocket and pulls out two things: a folded sheet of paper, and a balled-up pair of pants. She lets the latter fall to the floor. “You can come out of the closet, John,” she says, rolling her eyes at the inevitable pun. “Lab results don’t lie. I’m afraid Molly didn’t particularly want to run these particular DNA tests, but they were quite conclusive.”

John opens the door to the closet and walks slowly out, forming the third point of the triangle in his office. “So,” he says, a world of unsaid things in his tone. He crosses his arms, feeling like it’s the only thing he can do to defend himself despite the awkward bulk of the vest. “You had a camera in the loo, too. Who could have guessed.” He shakes his head, feeling so many things at once that he can’t possibly identify them individually. There’s guilt, a lot of that, and a good helping of rage, too. How can she accuse him of anything when she’s had their entire flat under surveillance, even the _bathroom_ , the entire time they’ve been together? Even after he’d taken her back? “What now?” he asks. “Are you going to kill me? It seems a bit more dramatic than divorce.”

Mary looks at him and her eyes are glassy and opaque. “He’ll kill me,” she says. “Moriarty. I would have gone after him, but I just couldn’t find any information. And _you_!” she spits at Sherlock. “You were supposed to have caught him! What good have you been?”

“Mary,” Sherlock says, his hands placating, “It’s not real. Moriarty is dead.”

“What?” She doesn’t understand. Sherlock and Mycroft have outwitted her. “What are you talking about?” It’s beginning to dawn on her, though. She looks at John, as though for help, and he shakes his head. 

“When did you obtain my full medical report, by the way?” Sherlock asks. “The one that says that I was pronounced dead, at least momentarily, courtesy of your last shot? How long did that take you? Less than a week, I imagine.”

Mary juts out her chin. “I had it before you were out of the hospital.”

“Mary,” John says, but doesn’t know how to go on. 

She won’t look at him. “I knew I blew it when I let slip about the snipers.” Her eyes shoot daggers at Sherlock. “I was sure you had told him. You would have done anything to get him more and more on your side – and it looks like it finally worked.”

“He didn’t tell me,” John says. “And not because it wasn’t important to him. So tell me,” he says. “Would you really have killed me?”

“I guess you’re both about to find out,” Mary says viciously. She takes aim at John’s chest. “You betrayed me. You cheated on me. I trusted you. You let me believe you had decided to accept me for all that I was, even if you didn’t know what that was.”

“That,” John says, holding his palms outward in self-defense, for all the good it will do, “was before I found out you were hired to kill me. That you had killed Sherlock with that shot, and meant to. You visited him in the hospital and threatened him. Let him create an alibi for you to retain your cover, so that our marriage could have a chance. But you were never going to trust me, were you?”

“I had reason not to,” Mary says bitterly. “You were always too close, the two of you. I always knew he was trouble. He always knows too much.”

“I don’t know; I see,” Sherlock puts in. “Mary, put the gun down. The clinic is surrounded. Surrender now and no harm done.”

“It’s too late for that.” There are tears tracking down Mary’s face. She looks ugly when she cries and the gun isn’t moving. “I gave up everything that I was to be with you,” she says to John. “But you don’t even know who I am. This is it, and you don’t love it, do you?” 

John’s jaw clenches. “I don’t think you quite understand how love is supposed to work. Love isn’t supposed to be about pretending to be something you’re not. About killing people to keep someone with you. That’s just selfishness. Whereas Sherlock has literally given up everything for me time and time again. I’m sorry. It’s just too broken – even the foundation of what we were, because it was all based on a lie.”

Mary swallows, then nods. Her voice is steadier when she speaks again. “Well, if you think I’m just going to come along quietly, you can think again.” She levels adjusts her aim to centre on John’s chest. “Symbolic to aim for the heart, wouldn’t you say?” Her eyes are horribly blue, horribly cold. 

“Mary – ” It’s all he has time for before the sound of a gunshot rings out, muffled by the silencer, the impact hard against his chest. Instinctively he knows to fake it and besides which, the force of the shot is so hard that he stumbles back a step or two anyway, letting himself slam into the door of the supply closet and slide limply down it. Sherlock is shouting Mary’s name and rushing to stand in front of John’s prone form. John’s ears are ringing and he can’t quite catch what she’s saying, but then the room is filled with other voices, lots of them. There’s a lot of noise and confusion, and then suddenly everything goes quiet.

The quiet footsteps of polished, posh shoes falls across the floor of his office, and Mycroft Holmes says, “Mrs Watson, you are under arrest for the attempted murder of your husband.”

“Attempted?” Mary gasps, and whether that’s from shock or relief is impossible to tell. 

John opens his eyes. Sherlock is there, kneeling in front of him. “All right?” he asks quietly. John nods and lets Sherlock help him to his feet, still reeling from the blow. 

John looks Mary in the eye and knows then, finally, that he doesn’t love her any more. Everything has fallen utterly silent, the tension in the room positively crackling. Then Mary snatches a gun from somewhere, not her own, and shoots herself in the temple before anyone can do anything about it. The agents holding her let go and fan out almost instantaneously, some of them shouting in reaction, and her body begins to fall. Sherlock, of all people, is the first to rush to catch her, lowering her to the floor. “Call an ambulance!” he snaps at Mycroft. “Do it now!”

Everything is in confusion, Sherlock and Mycroft issuing conflicting orders and snapping at each other. John drops to his knees and crawls over to Mary. Her eyes are open, unseeing, and he deliberately doesn’t look at the mess pooling from the back and side of her skull. He touches her face and feels the tears prickling hotly at the back of his eyes. Touches her rounded belly and isn’t aware that he’s saying her name. _You could have lived. We could have shared our daughter. Raised her in turns. No one had to die._ But it’s too late. 

He’s in a daze. Dimly aware that Sherlock is beside him in the ambulance, holding his hand but wisely, for once in his life, saying nothing whatsoever.

***

The next six hours are a dim blur, the edges of reality so sharply painful that John can’t help but shrink away. Sherlock is the one constant, never leaving him, even for a minute. There is no whirling away to talk to people, demand questions of the doctors, hurry anything along. Some part of him is always touching John – a hand, an arm, the warmth of his side. There is a lot of sitting and waiting in a terrible, terrible silence that Sherlock doesn’t break. A doctor appears at one point and says, “They’re operating now.” Sherlock says something in acknowledgement, but John can’t. His tongue has turned to stone, his body numb. Sherlock’s hand on his knee is the only thing anchoring him to the earth at all. He can hear from the tone of voice that the prognosis isn’t good. Not even particularly hopeful. 

He’s right, but that doesn’t lessen the shock when the same doctor returns later, wringing his hands and trying to find the least heartbreaking words to tell them that the child was stillborn. He hears the words wash over him like ice, vaguely aware that Sherlock’s arms are around him. He hears them saying things about making arrangements but he can’t speak. “I’m taking him home,” Sherlock says decisively, and that’s good. That’s all he wants. To go home. 

The silence doesn’t go away in the taxi. Sherlock is sitting very close beside him, holding his hand, not saying anything, not looking at him, but John can feel him observing with every inch of his fierce observational skills regardless. Even he can work that out, even now. They’re at Baker Street, which John supposes he knew was their destination all along. He isn’t aware that he’s stopped at the bottom of the stairs, just looking up, when Sherlock says his name, urges him to go on up. Mrs Hudson’s voice shrills against his ears, distressed, but Sherlock says something sharp, probably much too sharp, but it works; she retreats back into 221A and leaves him alone. Inside the sitting room, Sherlock takes off his coat, then comes over and gently tugs John’s jacket off, hangs it up. “Are you hungry?” he asks. “I thought probably not, but it’s been hours since you’ve eaten…”

“I’m not hungry,” John says dully. 

“Tired?” Sherlock is holding him upright by the strength of his eyes alone, piercing and intensely blue. 

“I don’t know. What time is it?”

“After one.” Sherlock is watching him, intent. “Do you… want to stay in your room? Upstairs, I mean?”

John can’t think, he can’t; his head is full of clouds and grief that hasn’t even begun to make itself completely felt yet, but he finds himself shaking his head. “I don’t want to be alone. I’m sorry. I just – ”

“Don’t be sorry. Come on, then.” Sherlock steps out of his way to let John go first, down the short corridor into Sherlock’s bedroom. 

He’s been here dozens of times before, but almost never with Sherlock. It’s odd, somehow. He goes around to the far side and sits down on the edge of the bed and forgets what he’s meant to be doing next. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Sherlock is there in an instant, kneeling in front of him. 

“John,” he says. “Come on. Focus. Let’s just get you out of your clothes.”

“I can’t,” he begins, protesting, his voice sounding flat in his ears. 

“You can. I’ll help you.” Sherlock unties the shoelaces of John’s shoes, pulls his socks off. Next he’s unbuttoning John’s checked shirt, pulling the sleeves off his unresisting arms. Then the belt, and Sherlock manages to get his trousers open without it even seeming suggestive. “Up for a second,” he commands and John finds himself obeying on instinct. Who’d have thought, he thinks dimly, obediently stepping out of his trousers. “Good enough,” Sherlock says. “Into bed.” He’s drawn the covers back, waits until John has roused himself sufficiently to get into it, then goes to the other side. 

John watches him mechanically, watches Sherlock take off piece after piece of expensive clothing until he’s down to his pants. John knows from having lived with him before that Sherlock generally sleeps nude, but he hesitates now and leaves his underwear. They’re black and smooth and contrast against his marble skin, white in the moonlight coming in. Strange how even with everything else, he can notice that.

Sherlock slides into bed, turns on his side to face John. He moves his hand so that his knuckles are touching John’s. “Sleep if you can,” he says, his voice so gentle that he doesn’t even sound like himself. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

A memory echoes, _Why would I ever need you?_ and the difference is so stark from those days when John’s jealousy was all but eating him alive, and now he’s in Sherlock’s bed and everything has just fallen spectacularly apart except for Sherlock, who is being a pillar of everything he once would have denied being at all. He should say something, maybe. Sherlock’s face is so worried: worried about him. And them, possibly. Worried that John is regretting it, wishing he’d done something differently that would have allowed him to keep Mary and the child. He should say something but he can’t. He closes his eyes and lets the blackness surround him like a cloud. 

***

When he wakes in the middle of the night, he knows he has been dreaming, but he wakes to the same thing, the nightmare that is also reality, tears on his face. Sherlock draws him into his arms and holds him, pressing kisses into his hair and saying nothing. 

***

Four days somehow go by. John gets dressed in the mornings, eats like a robot, tries to read newspapers, avoiding the front page stories, and goes for walks. The clinic is closed temporarily; the police had sealed it off as a crime scene and then when he’d called to ask, the receptionist told him in shocked tones that he wasn’t expected back for at least a month. Compassionate leave, the army would have called it. That’s fine, but he has no idea what he’s supposed to do with himself. 

Sherlock watches him carefully and mostly leaves him alone. He takes no cases, just stays inside 221B and quietly urges John to eat every so often. Their close friends send flowers about the baby. People he doesn’t know that well or who don’t know what happened send flowers for both Mary and the baby. Sherlock disposes of the latter when he’s gone on a walk one day and neither of them say anything about it later. 

On the fifth day there’s a funeral for the baby. She would have been dangerously premature had she survived Mary’s suicide and could have died anyway. For all intents and purposes, Mary killed her when she killed herself, keeping any part of herself from John as payment for his betrayal. There was a memorial service for Mary, attended by several people, including some media, but not them. John had no desire to go and Sherlock seemingly surmised (correctly) that he didn’t want to and never mentions it. The night before the baby’s funeral as he’s lying in Sherlock’s arms, Sherlock breaks the silence that has somehow become the new normal for them. “Do you blame me?” he asks, voice gravelly, underscored with worry. 

John has to turn the question over in his head several times before any of the words connection with anything and make sense. And then the word on his tongue, tasted and prodded and tested before he says it. “No.”

“I may have contributed to – this,” Sherlock says. “This outcome.”

“No.” John is positive of this. “It was my choice. And Mary’s.” He can feel Sherlock’s doubt, and adds, “You don’t actually control everything, you know.”

Sherlock gives an unexpected laugh as though this took him by surprise. “No,” he says after a bit. “I don’t suppose I do.”

The funeral is very small; Sherlock kept it that way. The coffin is so tiny that Molly and Mrs Hudson cry at the very sight of it. No one is entirely stoic except for, possibly, Mycroft. John certainly hadn’t invited him (Sherlock made all of the arrangements but they never said anything about Mycroft) but is shocked to find himself touched that Mycroft came. He approaches John after, exchanging a look with his brother, who hasn’t left John’s side from start to finish. Sherlock gives him a cautionary nod and Mycroft says, very formally, “My sincerest condolences, Doctor… John. I’m very sorry.”

He holds out his hand, which Sherlock looks at incredulously, but John shakes it. “Thank you,” he says. He supposes he should thank Mycroft (he assumes it was Mycroft, at any rate) for having had his things moved from the flat in Stratford to Baker Street, but he can’t bring himself to say it. Not now. 

He endures the rest, the hugging and sympathies, until Sherlock gauges that he’s had as much as he can take and gently leads him back to the limousine and from there, home. 

That night, Sherlock undresses all the way for the first time and when he pulls John into his arms, John doesn’t resist it. They haven’t kissed since the bolt hole in Camden High Street. Sherlock has kissed him, many times, but always in carefully neutral places. The top of the head. The forehead. The tops of his shoulders. Now he lowers his mouth to John’s cautiously, as though worried John will turn his face away, reject him. But John doesn’t; the last thing he wants tonight is to be left alone. He pushes into the kiss with a sort of desperate hunger. Sherlock makes a sound of clear surprise, but recovers and allows John into his mouth, the kiss turning from careful to nearly violent within a heartbeat. He might actually be hurting Sherlock but he doesn’t care all that much. All he knows is that Sherlock is the one solid, trustworthy, true thing in his life and he wants him so badly that his skin is aching everywhere. Sherlock has recovered from his surprise and is giving it back exactly as John wants it, his hands pressing hard into John’s back, a leg wound possessively around John’s calf. And he may not be a genius but he knows that Sherlock is incredibly turned on right now. It wouldn’t take the world’s only consulting detective to deduce the erection stabbing into John’s stomach, already damp, oozing his desire onto John’s flesh, already beginning to rub against him, not because he planned to but because he can’t help it, because it’s instinctive. 

John can’t help it himself; he groans, trying to get himself closer to Sherlock. He’s wearing pyjama pants, which was evidently a mistake. Sherlock does something about it before he can, though, suddenly flipping John onto his back and yanking them off in one swift action. He stays down there after, kissing the softness of John’s belly that gathered after only a month of his sedentary life with Mary (but he doesn’t want to think of Mary now and switches that thought off immediately), kissing a path down to John’s cock, which is almost embarrassingly hard. He’s too aroused to care at this point, though. He gasps as Sherlock puts his mouth on it – _that_ mouth, which can utter such brilliance, which can reduce a person to bare bones with a swarm of words like piranhas. The very mouth which has been so remarkably, uncharacteristically gentle with him since the day John chose him, chose to be with him. It’s mercifully not gentle now – Sherlock’s lips are tight, his tongue working hard against his cock and it feels so incredible that John can’t help the sounds he’s making, fingers clenching in Sherlock’s funeral-arranged curls. He’s arching upward and getting close when Sherlock takes his mouth away, an act crueller than murder at this junction, and asks, “Do you want to come?”

His voice is rough with undisguised lust, eyes flooded with it, hooded as they find John’s. “What do you think?” John manages to get out. 

“No, I mean, do you want to come like _this_?” Sherlock specifies. “Or is there – anything else you’d like?”

John stares down the length of his own body at Sherlock and has the wit to realise that Sherlock is offering. Is he offering what John thinks he’s offering? Check: yes. He thinks so. Possibly no great deduction there; Sherlock demonstrated the other day, which feels like months ago now, that he was capable of being quite submissive in bed, if nowhere else. Perhaps he evens wants it. Only one way to find out. “I want to fuck you,” he says. It’s terribly plain, unvarnished, but Sherlock’s eyes gleam. 

“I thought you might,” he says. “In fact, I was rather hoping you would, sometime.” He gets up off the bed and goes to the drawer of his night table, cock nearly flat against his belly. His, unlike John’s, is flat and muscular and looking at it, John wants to put his tongue on it. On all of Sherlock’s body, really. He’s staring at Sherlock’s arse as Sherlock withdraws a condom and a bottle of lubricant from the drawer, barely noticing as Sherlock tosses the former to him. He smiles. “You’re staring,” he says. 

“Sorry,” John says automatically, snapping out of it. 

“Don’t be. I like it.” Sherlock gets back onto the bed, kneeling beside John. “Now is probably a good time to mention that I’ve never done this before. Be gentle. But not too gentle. How do you want me?”

John finds he has to swallow; his mouth has filled with saliva. “On… on your back,” he says, his voice not working properly the first time. “I want to see your face.”

Sherlock agrees readily and lies down, waiting. 

John looks at him and has the wit to realise that Sherlock is still completely in control of the situation. Knows that John needs to feel like he’s in control of something in his life right now and is willing to cede this to him for that reason alone, if not for his own reasons as well. He could object, but what good will it do? Besides, they both want it. Tonight, especially, John wants this, wants to not only know the full extent of Sherlock’s complete and total commitment to him, but to feel it physically, viscerally. And beyond that, he wants Sherlock, plain and simple. After years of not quite being together in the way they should have been, moving in together again should have been the most joyful event in either of their lives, but the way it worked out, all they’ve done is lie together while John, unable to work through his grief in the daylight, cries in Sherlock’s arms every night. But they’ve both wanted this for so long – the time in the flat in Camden was just a precursor to this, a confirmation that they both wanted it. And God help him, he wants it badly. His fingers are trembling with want as they roll the condom onto himself. He slicks his fingers with lube, then lies down on Sherlock’s body and begins to kiss him again, demanding, hungry kisses as he finds Sherlock’s cock and strokes it, rubs his balls, and slips a fingertip into his body. 

Sherlock’s reactions are everything he could hope for; he moans and writhes under John’s touches, his cock twitching and throbbing against John’s forearm as he slides his finger deeper into Sherlock. Sherlock tenses a little with the second finger, but John kisses him through the discomfort, his mouth on Sherlock’s mouth, his neck, his chest, nipples hard on John’s tongue. “John,” he pants. “I – want – ”

“Yes?” John asks, pressing a little deeper. 

Sherlock’s breath hitches as John’s fingers find his prostate. “You!” he gasps. “ _Fuck_ , John. You. Now. Please.”

His words connect to every nerve ending in John’s body, a shudder of desire rolling through him so intensely that he can barely breathe. “Yes.” It’s a ghost of breath, of agreement so fervent he doesn’t need to say anything else. He knows that it will still be very tight for Sherlock but doesn’t think that either of them can bear to wait any longer. He gets the head of his cock in place. “I love you,” he says without thinking, and begins to push inside. 

Sherlock’s entire body goes rigid, his fingers tightening on John’s shoulders where they’re gripping, but he exhales and visibly forces himself to relax. “I love you,” he responds, the words ragged with physical tension and desire both. 

John groans and makes himself go as slowly as he can. When he’s all in, he looks down at the pale curves of Sherlock’s arse and at himself buried between them and the sight is so overstimulating he’s afraid he’s going to lose it right there and then. He breathes and attempts to get a grip on himself. When he feels Sherlock relax, he asks, “All right?”

“Yes.” Sherlock’s voice is tight but he’s still quite impressively hard, so it can’t have been as uncomfortable as John feared. “Move – please – ” he requests, and John is glad to oblige. 

He sets up a slow rhythm that will ease the burn, or so he hopes, and looks for the right angle to make this as good for Sherlock as it already is for him – Sherlock’s body is very, very tight around him, as tight as Sherlock’s bad moods and as warm as his exuberant excitement, and John’s entire body is quivering at the effort of not coming, not yet. It feels beyond amazing to be inside Sherlock like this, to know that he has the world’s only consulting detective on his back and breathing his name like profanity as John fucks him steadily. John changes angles slightly and is rewarded by Sherlock’s eyes flying open, mouth opening in a gasp. “Like that?” he asks, and Sherlock can only nod. Evidently John’s managed to render him speechless for once in their lives. Sherlock is moaning, though, one hand scrabbling at his cock, jerking it roughly. The sight is so pornographic, so incredibly arousing, that John loses control of the careful rhythm and begins to thrust frantically, hips snapping forward, driving himself into Sherlock again and again and again. 

“John – !” Sherlock’s voice cuts out after his name as he comes, hard, his face flushing red over his upper cheeks and forehead, breath escaping in bursts through his nose as he attempts to stifle himself from making too much noise, and it’s more than John’s senses can take. He lets himself go, feeling the orgasm clench around his body like a vice, emptying himself from the toes up, or so it feels, pleasure flooding through him, flooding into the condom, within Sherlock’s body. He keeps thrusting for another moment or two as the climax dies down, then lets himself crash down onto Sherlock. 

“Okay?” is all he can manage, his cock still sunk root-deep in Sherlock. 

Sherlock wraps both legs around John’s and draws his face down with his hands. “Very much so,” he says before kissing John again, his tongue very convincing against John’s. His arms settle around John’s shoulders as the kiss goes on, though John is still out of breath, panting into Sherlock’s mouth a little. His cock softens and slips out of Sherlock after awhile, so he peels off the condom and tosses it into the wastepaper bin near the dresser. When he settles into Sherlock’s arms again, Sherlock nudges his nose into the bridge of John’s and says, “I plan to devote the rest of my life to convincing you that you made the right choice.”

It’s deeply sincere, and if no one has ever told Sherlock about making promises right after sex – and mind-blowing sex at that – John is still quite touched by it. “Idiot,” he says, moving partly off Sherlock to get his head onto the pillow. “I don’t need to be convinced.”

“Mycroft used to say that we don’t just make decisions once; we remake them every day that we live,” Sherlock says. His face is too close; John almost can’t focus on it, and his large, peculiarly beautiful eyes are silvery from the streetlight. “I think that’s rather true.”

“If that’s your way of asking if I regret this, the answer is no,” John tells him, hearing how strained he sounds. “I don’t regret it. I regret a lot of what’s happened, but not this. I’m glad we’ve finally become… this.”

“Partners?” Sherlock suggests, making a distasteful face at the inadequate term. 

“I suppose, yeah.” John touches Sherlock’s lower lip, a wave of sleepiness washing over him. “Though we were always partners.”

“Now we’re doubly so.” Sherlock gives him one of his rare real smiles at this. “Are you falling asleep?”

“Think so. Yeah. Sorry. It’s been quite a day.” John’s eyes are already closed. 

“Yes, it has,” Sherlock agrees. He waits a moment, then says, “John?”

“Yeah?”

“That was rather spectacular.”

John opens his eyes, feels his mouth smiling despite himself. “It was, wasn’t it?”

“It was my first time,” Sherlock says. “But you knew that. I think. You were curious, weren’t you? With Janine?”

Janine. After everything else, John has nearly forgotten about Janine. “I was,” he admits. 

“Were you jealous?”

He can’t really deny it, can he. “Yes. Very.”

Sherlock actually chuckles. “Good,” he says. “I wanted you to be.”

“You’re a right dick sometimes, you know,” John says. 

“Yes, but you love me anyway,” Sherlock says, sounding smug. 

If this is Sherlock on afterglow, God help him. “I do,” John concedes. He bends forward and kisses Sherlock again, confirming it. “I really, really do,” he says again, afterward. 

Sherlock looks happy, happier than John has ever seen him. “It would be rather tasteless to point out what an idiot you were, I suppose. We could have had this all along, though, you know.”

“Yeah,” John says. “I know. But I got there in the end.”

“At your own speed,” Sherlock agrees. He yawns. “Good night, John.”

John is already drifting toward sleep again, his arm draped bonelessly over Sherlock’s scarred chest – scarred for him, for love of him, he remembers. And it’s true, he finally got there. He thinks it used to be a bit the other way around, that he loved Sherlock more than he could admit to himself, and that it was rather one-sided. Then maybe it tilted the other way while he was with Mary, or at least it was a good enough reason to choose not to see it, but now they’ve finally got there. All because Sherlock slowed everything to his pace, gave him the time to see what he needed to see on his own, to make his own choices about it. It’s true that he’s been thick about the whole thing, at least in comparison to Sherlock and Mycroft and Mary, all of whom knew who he was and what he truly wanted all along. But he caught on eventually, and although he has to re-imagine his life in every way now, he meant it: he doesn’t regret it. 

With his fingers resting against Sherlock’s bullet scar, the tangible proof of the depth of his love for him should he ever need it, John finally falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Chinese translation by Karoliner now being posted here: http://www.mtslash.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=107680 (username: authors, password 123456789).
> 
> Korean translation by ahimsa now available here: http://blog.naver.com/ahimsa93/220012272907

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Cover Art] for SilentAuror's "Deductions of a Lesser Mind"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3158996) by [livloveel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/livloveel/pseuds/livloveel)




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